I Just killed somebody…

The body of the man laid before me as his blood slowly spread in a circle on the floor, it had been a clean cut opening his throat from ear to ear, the man had begged me, he had cried and screamed but, as if I was action on autopilot I had grabbed my kunai and cut the life out of him without hesitation.

The realization of what I had done hit me like the runaway truck which had ended my previous life and I was left frozen in place starring at the bloodied kunai in my hand, truth be told I wanted nothing more than to drop the curved kunai and flee this place but I was far too afraid to act on it, those bastards would certainly take this as a sign of weakness and weakness was not to be tolerated.

So I stood there, trembling and sweating, I had no illusions that my poor acting could fool any of those present they were trained to read people after all but the fact that I tried to resist my fear should earn me some points at least, finally sensei nodded his head “Well done Nagami” He said and laid a hand on my right shoulder causing me to flinch which he ignored.

Before I was reborn in this accursed village I often dreamed of transmigration or reincarnation, being taken away from my boring life to a world of magic and adventure where I could make friends, grow strong and make a difference in the world but, then again, which high school student doesn’t wish for a different life, we never really stop to think about what that really means.

When I first reincarnated I was a baby, confused and with very little memory of what had happened I muddled through my first years in this place and, slowly, my memories came back to me and I became exited, it didn’t take me long to find out I had been reborn into the Naruto world, in my mind I would soon be throwing around jutsus and fighting evil Nukenin, saving the world and, dare I say, seducing a few hot kunoichi from konoha?

What I had forgotten as a naruto fan is that the elemental nations are not such happy place to be born in, they’re a land of child soldiers where 6 years old boys are trained as shinobi to assassinate and spy on people, where wars break out every ten years or so and where normal citizens are as powerless as insects.

It wouldn’t be so bad had I been born in Konohagakure but no, whatever power sent me here just had to send me into kirigakure four years before the end of the third shinobi war, I didn’t know shit about kirigakure damn it!

No that’s a lie, I knew it was a very shitty place to be born into I could even say it was the worst place to be born into since its Mizukage was a puppet of Akatsu and they liked to make children kill each other in their graduation exam, then the loneliness started to settle in, I missed my family, I missed my friends, I missed my world and it was painful.

My parents had been outsiders in the village, our family was annexed to kirigakure in one of the previous wars so we were distrusted to say the least and sent in the worst kind of missions, we were spendable so it was no surprise that they died a year before I fully recovered my memories, perhaps it had been for the best as I don’t know if I could have ever loved them instead of my previous family.

Entering the shinobi academy was easy, it was wartime and they were desperate for more manpower no matter how young, at 4 years old I entered the academy and thought my life would start to get better, I was wrong.

Contrary to konoha kiri had two different academies for shinobi, the first one was made for the scions of the founding clans of kirigakure, it had the best teachers and was very close to what I had seen in the anime, the second one was the one I entered, a place where taijutsu and ninjutsu are brutally beaten into our bodies until we spew blood, a place where there are no medical ninjas and we are constantly driven to the point of insanity before being indoctrinated into becoming loyal to kirigakure above all else, there are no friends in the academy only competitors.

I don’t think I would have survived the academy to this day had I not been able to remember my previous life, or at least I would not have retained my sanity.

Wiping the cold sweat from my forehead I cleaned the blood off my kunai and went to stand before the wall as sensei called another student to the front, two shinobi then dragged a new convict to the front, his hands and feet were tied and his mouth was gagged so he couldn’t scream, they took off his gag and kicked his leg so he was left kneeling before the boy who would end his life.

“Please, I am innocent, this must be a mistake!” the man cried and my classmate paused, he couldn’t bring himself to do it, seen his chance the criminal continued, tears running down his face “Please I have family, I just want to see my wife and son again, please don’t do this”

“Mizuki Hasegawa do it” Said sensei Hanzo with a harsh voice, with no option Mizuki grabbed his kunai and, with trembling hands tried to slit the throat of the criminal, unfortunately the cut was too shallow and the criminal was left gurgling in his own blood but still alive.

“Pathetic, do it again” now crying Misuki had to grab the criminal’s head and lift it so he could cut finish the job, his arms seemed to have lost strength and his kunai seemed to be unable to dig deeper into the man’s flesh, he tried it once, twice but, as the man’s blood soaked into his clothes he finally lost his courage and crumbled to the ground crying.

Closing my eyes briefly I ignored him, the academy conditioning told me that, even if he was two years older than me he was weak and I should be glad as he would be easier to defeat in the graduation exam but my consciousness screamed at me.

‘That’s how I should have reacted, that’s how a normal person should have reacted in such impossible situation’ it screamed at me, I ignored it.

I wanted to live even if becoming a murderer was what it took.

Before anyone could do anything else Hanzo sensei pulled out his sword and slashed the boy’s back making him scream and fall face first into the blood soaked floor, then he turned his sword and pierced the boy’s hearth in a single move

“A pity one of my own students turned out to be so weak, I expect the rest of you won’t commit the same mistake?” he asked and everyone swallowed hard, too afraid to even answer, pulling the sword from Mizuki’s back he decapitated the bleeding prisoner and asked for another one from the shinobi in the room.

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Another 8 criminals were dragged forwards and another 8 of my classmates killed them, despite the brutality of our training until now this was the first time one of us had died in this academy, most of us had thrown up on the spot, others were left crying and some were more composed but not one of them failed the assignment again, we all knew better than to fail.

“Good, it seems like there are no useless people in this class” said Hanzo sensei with a satisfied smile “today you have taken your first life, today you have proven you have what it takes to serve your country and be useful for your village, you did great, better than many before you.

Taking a life isn’t easy but it is necessary in the life of a ninja, remember this feeling, this is the day you all become strong, this is the day you took your first step into becoming a shinobi, I am proud of you!”

As he finished his speech the other shinobi around the room started clapping, their faces were no longer the grim masks, their eyes no longer looked at us with disdain, they were smiling, around me I felt the children relax, slowly the horror of taking a life was forgotten and they were left with pride, here in this dark place they were no longer poor civilians but were truly accepted by those shinobi and it felt good.

I wanted to throw up.

I left the celebration as soon as I could saying I had to wash my bloodstained shirt before class tomorrow, I don’t think anyone suspected me of wanting to run away since I only had two sets of clothes and wanting one of them to be ready for class tomorrow was pretty normal but inside my mind I was horrified, for a second there even I had been proud, proud of killing a man.

Leaving the academy building I looked around myself and sighed, the village was absolutely beautiful, the buildings were circular and covered with green vines giving them a sense of integration with nature that the modern world lacked, the sky was clean and free of pollution and I could even see a few stars already starting to appear despite it not being so late, it was difficult to think that such sight could hide so much horror.

For a year after my parents death I had lived in the streets but now, after entering the academy I was thankfully given a place in the academy dorm, it wasn’t really the best place as it had a small room with four bunk beds, neither was it the safest place as the students are known to poison or beat each other when close to the exams but it had a bed and a blanket for the cold nights so it was enough.

My bed was the top one closer to the door and all my things were kept inside a large bag I kept inside it, some of my companions had tried to steal from me a few times but I managed to dissuade them from the notion, broken noses make for very compelling arguments.

Picking up some soap in the bag I left the dorm and went towards one of the small rivers that passed through the village and helped produce the mist that hid it from view, although I used cleaning my clothes as an excuse I really did have to wash my clothes everyday.

Briefly closing my eyes I concentrated on the chakra gathered in my center and slowly rotated it through my body to warm up before sending it flowing through my legs increasing my speed and strength, then I jumped, I was nowhere as strong as most shinobi and my control was lacking but I was still able to use the vines covering the buildings to climb them and take a more direct path towards the river saving me half an hour of walking.

Reaching the river I took off my clothes and starred at them, the blood had already dried and it would be a pain to try and wash them as they were so I dropped to my knee and made the snake seal, using earth release I made the ground in a small circle rise up forming a basin, then I filled it with water and let my dirty clothes soak, while waiting I decided to train my chakra control a little.

Chakra, and I can’t say this enough, a huge pain in the ass, in the anime they make it look so easy, climb a tree for a day or two and you get instant power up, yeah not so easy in real life, or perhaps I am just not MC material who knows the fact is I have been trying to climb this damn tree for the last month and I barely reached ¾ or its height.

Concentrating on the chakra on my feet I ran towards the tree and stepped in its trunk, using every bit of concentration I could muster I ran making my chakra stick to its surface, three meters, four meters, five meters, I saw the furthest mark from my kunai and smiled as I was almost setting a new record, the brief distraction cost me and my feet lost traction making me fall back, I still managed to twist midair and fall on my feet but it sent a painful jolt through my knees “Fuck!”

Then I tried again, and again and again until my legs were hurting like hell and I was no longer able to land on them and even further, I will admit that my memories gave me an edge over the rest of my classmates but the only reason I was able to remain first place in my class even when there were older students was because I worked harder than anyone else at it.

By the end of the day I was left with two dozen bruises in my back and had advanced my mark by 1.5m, nor ideal but not bad for a single day of training, having managed to forget a little about what I had done earlier I was left feeling sore but content as I scrubbed my shirt inside the earth basin until it was completely clean.

I swear there has to be a cloth cleaning jutsu somewhere in this village or else, with the amount of blood they make us spill, they’d need an entire squad of cloth washers everyday, unfortunately thinking of blood immediately ruined my good mood and froze me in the spot.

“My name is Asuno!” Screamed the criminal before me as soon as his gag had come off “my wife died in the war and I have two daughters and a son!” I knew what he was doing, he was trying to seem more human, to connect with me so I wouldn’t be able to kill him and it was working, looking into his eyes I saw not a criminal or a monster but a man, a human being which had family and friends, someone who though and felt just like me.

Then I remembered what happened with those who failed the academy, it wasn’t reason enough for execution but it may as well have been as the failures were thrown away, given the most dangerous and degrading jobs, there was no dignity for failures, there was no freedom for those who took kirigakure kindness and were unable to pay it off, most of those who failed either died from overwork, were killed by enemy shinobi or killed themselves from despair, it was not something I could take.

So I hardned my hearth and covered his mouth with my hand before he could say anything else, them I pulled his head back and slashed his throat as hard as I could going so far as to infuse chakra into my arms and nearly decapitating the man, he died almost instantly.

Coming out of my memory I had to hurry and turn my head aside so I could throw up inside the river, spewing my entire lunch until there was nothing left, at that moment I wanted nothing but to go back home, fuck this place, fuck this damn village, fuck chakra and jutsus and adventure I just wanted to see my mom again, to be normal.

Gathering my clothes I walked out of the river and rinsed my mouth in its water before hanging them in a nearby branch, then I looked at my climbing tree and narrowed my eyes, what was the use of living in this world if I was gonna be a useless shinobi, just another one of the countless cannon fodder in the endless wars of the elemental nations? No I had to excel, I had to be the best.

When I started running up the tree once again there was something different inside of me, no longer was I just concentrating on chakra control, no there was something more now, there was determination.

Before long I shot pass my previous mark and continued climbing, one feet after the other, my chakra fully under my control as I finally stood on top of the 12 meters tall tree and looked over the village, my chakra was nearly empty and I was breathing hard but damn it felt good, it felt much better than any praise coming from the academy’s shinobi, this time I had not meet their expectations but my own and it felt great.

“I didn’t think you had it in you kid congratulations!” I heard someone say while clapping from my right “How old are you anyway 6?”

My head whipped around on reflex and I was left starring open mouthed at the familiar shark featured man sitting on top of another tree, what the hell is he doing here?