CH_2.1 (033): Genin Corps

CH_2.1 (033): Genin Corps

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?"

"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.

Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link below.

Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.