Chương 33: CH_2.2 (033):

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 heard 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?"

"Took 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 attempt the jonin test?" If Masaaki had dog ears, they would droop down.

"Yeah, me, Ai, and Nenro took the test, but she failed us," he said, sounding disappointed.' 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. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. 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 make 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 was 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 are 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 he had grown desensitized and had started 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 gear 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.