Hey everyone, I want to talk about something I always hear about in Naruto fanfiction, but after researching it, I don't think it ever existed: the civilian council.
I looked into the manga and the forums, and it seems there was never a council where civilians had a say in village decisions. What existed was the Hokage and his advisors, plus a council that appeared after Pain's attack on the village to find the next Hokage.
I don't know if it actually exists, and I searched everywhere and it was a collective hysteria where most people said, "Yeah, that thing exists," or if it actually exists but it's in filler, or if I missed something important.
Anyway, that's all for now; let's continue the story.
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"Look, think of the Konoha ninja as this pawn; it's weak and can't do much compared to the other pieces, but if it manages to advance to the end, it can become any piece, even the most powerful one, the queen," I told Danzo.
We were in one of our regular meetings whenever we had the time.
"What you're doing is breaking this pawn and stagnating it, preventing it from reaching its full potential, which is the opposite of what a Hokage would do. A Hokage would ensure the piece reaches the end and becomes the strongest piece, or another piece that can help the board, or in this case, the village. Are you getting the idea?"
"Yes," Danzo said.
"So, if you were Hokage and had these shinobi under your command, what would you do with them?" I asked.
"I would send them to Root to strip them of their emotions and turn them into the ideal tools," he said very seriously.
"I would send them to Root to remove their emotions and turn them into the ideal tools." "AAAAHHH!!!" I yelled as I flipped the board over with all the pieces. "Understand that a person can only reach their full potential if they have their emotions, the fear of death, rivalry; all those things serve to change people and, by default, to help them evolve."
"I don't understand your mentality," he said simply.
"Look, think of it this way: let's take the feeling of fear of death. If you have a weapon, you'll see that it's not afraid to die; what it will do is go and die on the battlefield. How long will it be behind that weapon? Two battles; after that, it'll be gone. Wouldn't it be better if it were there as long as possible and by your side to decide what the best actions are to take?"
Danzo remained thoughtful, staring into space with his hand on his chin.
"Better forget it; let's leave it for another time. It's time for me to go," I said, getting up from the table to leave.
"That's right, you have to attend the academy tomorrow; I already have the perfect teacher to teach you," he said.
"Please tell me he's not a Root ANBU; for that, it would be better if he showed me a tree with a lesson scroll attached to its trunk."
"He's a member of the Nara Clan, quite intelligent and perceptive," he said, ignoring what I'd said about his men. "Here," he said, tossing me a scroll.
"Is this it?" I asked.
"The training for the elemental transformation of the Water Style; I know you already know several things and that it won't be hard for you to learn the village's basic ninjutsu, so I'm giving you this to keep you busy; the sooner you're ready, the sooner we can work together to make Konoha the greatest village." And with that, he left the room.
He knew it was the Root way of doing things, but at this point, he's leaving me alone. No ANBU has the right to take me; it's a direct order from Danzo himself.
And so, happy with my new scroll, I left Root's base to prepare for my first day at the academy.
...
The next morning I went to the academy; I went with my father; my mother was busy with the whole business of extorting the mummies and incorporating medical ninjas into the squads. I wish her luck.
When I arrived at the academy entrance, I saw a lot of kids, none of whom caught my eye. The ones who are noteworthy aren't in my generation, so there's not much to see. There's an Uchiha here and there, a Hyuga, an Akimichi, and an Inuzuka. But I can't really point a finger and say, "This kid is going to be someone important in the village's future," like, zero relevance; I think I wouldn't mind graduating early just to get out of this place.
Dan left me to my own devices, since I was able to walk around the village alone without anything happening to me.
Anyway, he's going through a crucial moment right now, since there's been talk about who could be the next Hokage, and some have already pointed to both Dan and Tsunade, so right now my dad has a target on his back, so he needs to prepare, and honestly, I don't want to be near a leprechaun on legs, even if he is my dad.
I had to sit in a not-very-comfortable chair and wait for the monkey to arrive. When he showed up, he started with his speech about the Will of Fire and all that stuff.
The Will of Fire is fine, and all things considered, it's a good vision for the village. The problem is the monkey. He preaches, but he doesn't practice. So that speech ends up being nothing but absurd nonsense; it's like reading a book only to find that the whole journey was for nothing or you end up back at the beginning. That's a terrible book—awful, garbage. That's exactly what the mummies' ideals are.
I spent the entire 30 minutes of the speech trying to sleep, but the chair wasn't really helping. The monkey noticed this; a single bead of sweat appeared on his brow when he saw me, but he carried on as if nothing was wrong.
After the grand speech by a great politician—sarcasm, sarcasm—I was finally able to enter the classroom.
The room was as I expected; it looked more like a university lecture hall than a classroom.
I sat down anywhere; I usually would have gone to the corner by the window, but it didn't really matter where I was.
Once everyone was seated, a chunin-rank shinobi with a lazy expression but a tremendous eagerness to start the class arrived. Next to him were other ninjas, who, judging by the distance, didn't look like they belonged to any clan.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Nara Akihiko, and I'll be your instructor." Simple, short, and direct—exactly what I expected from a Nara. He didn't even introduce his classmates; they looked at each other, and Akihiko gave them a look as if to say, "Do you want me to introduce you too? Do it yourselves; what a hassle."
And so they all began to introduce themselves until it was my turn, so I stood up to give my speech.
"Hello, my name is Senju Miyu," and I sat down.
Many people gave me strange looks; the only one nodding along with my speech was Akihiko, who nodded as if he understood the whole good vibes and hippie thing.
"Aren't you going to continue introducing yourself?" one of the other instructors asked.
"We're ninjas; why should I be giving away information about myself? They can learn both my strengths and weaknesses from it; I'm here to become a ninja, not to make friends; we would have gone to the park for that," I said.
No one said anything, processing what I had said.
The instructor barely managed to recover from his shock and asked the child next to him to continue his introduction.
"Um, my name is Suzuki Kazumi," and she fell silent.
I just laughed inwardly as I watched the instructor's frustrated face.
The rest of the introductions were the same; they just said their names and nothing more. The power of eloquence, something Danzo's mummy lacks, and something the monkey has in abundance.
Once the introductions were over, we went to the academy's training grounds; this was to assess our initial skill level.
First came the shuriken and kunai throwing, and as expected, only the children from ninja clans managed to achieve good results in this area.
On my turn, I scored 7/10 in shuriken and 6/10 in kunai. Considering this is only the third time I've done this, I can say I have talent, and I don't need to show off and prove that I'm only good at throwing pieces of metal like those Uchiha over there.
Next came the taijutsu sparring. Sleepy Don Bolas more or less knew my level, so he pitted me against an Akimichi.
The result? I defeated him in 10 seconds with one punch to the stomach and chin, and he was out of the lobby. I used the superhuman strength jutsu, but I held back a lot.
Then came the match-ups I could choose. An arrogant Uchiha challenged me to a duel. The match only lasted 15 seconds, 5 more than the Akimichi.
I don't like using my mother's taijutsu, but with superhuman strength, it can cause carnage.
I walked past the guy and spoke to him.
"Nice try, crazy eyes," and with that, I went to a corner to rest, ignoring the great anger I had provoked in the kid with the nickname I gave him.
...
"So, basically, you're asking for all my knowledge and techniques for yourself, but without it being my discipline," Tsunade said.
"Exactly, it's my birthright, and it would be a waste for you to die before I get them," I said haughtily.
"No," my mother said firmly.
"Come on, please, the forehead seal technique is a very powerful technique, and the idea is to practice it as soon as possible," I tried to convince her.
"That's not the name of the jutsu," she said, a little irritated.
"The name doesn't matter," I replied. "What's important is that, as your heir, that knowledge should be mine, logically enough."
"I already told you I would only teach it to you if you became my disciple." And so she returned to the same old topic.
"But I don't want to be a medical ninja; it would be wasting my potential. Besides, I technically already am a medical ninja; what more do you want?"
She didn't answer; she just crossed her arms and stared at me.
I just sighed at that.
"Besides, I'm about to graduate early; I already know all the academy's jutsu, not to mention I can do all three with fewer than two hand seals; in fact, I can do the replacement with just one." I complained as I threw myself onto the couch.
"And what does that have to do with anything?" she asked.
"If I graduate, I'll soon be on a genin team, and by default, I'll have to do missions, and you know how that monkey is; he doesn't hesitate to send kids to the front lines like cannon fodder."
"What do you know?" she said. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself a little, but not by much, really.
"That monkey likes to badmouth that monkey whenever she can; it's her way of getting back at him for taking the Hokage position from her, but knowing her double standards, it wouldn't surprise me if she did it."
Tsunade didn't say anything; she just thought for a while. After a while, she spoke.
"I'll think about it, but I don't think I'll show it to you anytime soon."
I didn't say anything; as long as it's before I turn 15, it's fine with me this time, but the sooner I know how it's done, the better.
My body can handle all of that. Thank you, Senju bloodline. What could be better than a body that can withstand anything or eyes that blind you?
In a few days, I'll be making my presentation for early graduation. And so far, I'm one of the village's greatest prodigies, according to everyone.
Currently, my ninjutsu list includes Body Replacement Jutsu, Clone Jutsu, Transformation Technique Jutsu, Release Jutsu (Liberal Genjutsu), Medical Jutsu (general), Summoning Technique Jutsu, Earth Style Earth Wall Jutsu, and Water Style Wave Collision Jutsu. Wood Style Jutsu: Wood Clone, Wood Style Transformation Jutsu.
A pretty decent arsenal. Still, considering I spend almost 24/7 training, this much progress is normal, especially with the mind of an adult.
My taijutsu is at a high chūnin level, something I need to improve, but I don't have the time.
My fuinjutsu is still stuck. I have an idea that I can create a seal that, upon touching a surface, imprints it in such a way that I can decide when the seal explodes.
The idea comes from explosive tags, but instead of sticking a piece of paper on it, you just touch the target with the palm of your hand. The mark left would be like that of the Flying Thunder God.
Basically, I'm taking two elements of fuinjutsu that can be created and fusing them.
The worst part is that Granny Mito hasn't wanted to help me at all, since she says it's too dangerous. And it is, but I'm using wood clones to do it, so out of all the failures and huge explosions, only one has affected me, and that was because I was too close.
No matter how long it takes, I'll achieve it, even if it costs me my life.
Another jutsu I'm practicing right now is Water Style: Water Convergence. With this, I won't need a water source to use other Water Style jutsu. I could carry a sticky note filled with water, but those things get lost along the way, not to mention they're single-use.
I can extract it from plants or more humid places, but extracting it from the air is still a method similar to a chemical reaction. Converting oxygen, helium, and other invisible gases into water. That's chemistry mixed with magic, my friend.
I haven't developed any wind, fire, or lightning jutsu yet, since it will be more difficult for me to learn them, as I don't have those natures; besides, if I can control both earth and water more efficiently, then I'll be able to have better control over the use of wood style, even if I don't train it directly.
While I was meditating, I saw Kushina arrive in the empty room. Currently, she's the only one I can consider a friend. There's also Mikoto, but I've seen her so few times that I don't know if I can call what's between us a friendship.
"Did you manage to convince her?" she asked innocently.
"No," I said simply.
She sat down next to me.
"I'm so jealous; you're graduating early," she said with a pout.
"Yeah, but I'm not the only one; I heard two others are graduating, and I think one of them is in your class," I replied.
"Really? Who is it?" she asked, not really knowing who it was.
"I think it's a boy with blond hair and blue eyes," I said.
She snapped her fingers.
"Right, the one with girly features," she said sincerely. Poor Minato. "I didn't know he was graduating early."
"Yeah, there's another one who's graduating early too; from what I understand, he's an Uchiha, and he's a year younger than you," I said.
"If all three of you are graduating early, does that mean you can all be on the same team?" she asked curiously.
Now that I think about it, if that happens, then I'll get a decent jonin sensei like Jiraiya; not a bad idea, knowing that it might be thanks to him that Minato got the Flying Thunder God Technique.
"Kushina, it's good that you think sometimes; you gave me an idea." I almost yelled at her.
"Hey, that offends me," she replied to what I said.
I had to try somehow; first, I had to find Uncle Toad; after that, it would all be easy.