Chapter 2:

Village Year 75, August 7th

Because the various nations were always at war, they could never agree on a universal calendar system in this world. The people in the Leaf Village began their own calendar from the year Konoha was founded, which was 75 years ago. While the exact year might not matter, what did matter was that the Kyuubi attacked the village on October 10th of Year 64. This meant the majority of the main cast were around 11-12 years old and just starting their final year in the academy. I had exactly one year to grind my stats as high as possible before canon officially kicked off and this world started going crazy.

I was determined to live every single day to the fullest and grind my way to the top. It all started today.

Right after breakfast…

I sat down at the kitchen table for breakfast. A bowl of miso soup was already in the spot where I had sat the night before. I casually sipped on it while glancing at Ryu, who had a pained look on his face.

“What's wrong?” I asked, setting the bowl back down.

Ryu turned his head to the side, clearly struggling with wanting to tell me something. I had a hunch about what he was going to say. After a thirty-second internal struggle, he let out a defeated sigh. “I didn't want to tell you this while your memories are still recovering, but we found your team. I'm sorry, Kasumi, but they're all gone. You all must have been ambushed by an incredibly skilled enemy. Jonin Komaru’s body shows that he was slain instantly, caught completely off guard. It was the same for your other two teammates as well. Yusuke and Adachi didn’t fare much better,” he explained somberly.

“Oh…” I didn’t really know what else to say. It’s not that I didn’t feel bad, but I was essentially hearing about the deaths of people I’d never met before. I didn’t even know their names until just now. “Is there a reason I was so far away from them?” That had been the one confusing piece of the puzzle. When I woke up in this world, there were no other bodies nearby. Kasumi wasn’t with her team when she was attacked.

Ryu shrugged. “I’m not sure either. You were over ten kilometers away from where we found them. It’s possible the attackers knew your identity and decided to hit you with a memory-altering Genjutsu,” he said with a grimace. “If I had lost you, Kasumi, I would have hunted your killers to the end of the world!” He clenched his fist tightly.

I felt happiness and sadness simultaneously swell inside my chest. Happiness that I now had such an amazing older brother, and sadness that he wouldn’t get to avenge his little sister. If I ever find out who killed her, I promised myself that I would take revenge in his place.

After that, we sat together and ate in relative silence. Judging by the concerned looks Ryu kept giving me, I think he was expecting me to break down and start crying at any moment.

I didn’t want to come off as heartless, but I eventually had to explain to him that I wouldn’t be crying over the deaths of people I didn’t know.

“I… understand,” he said hesitantly, and we decided not to continue further on this particular topic.

When we finished eating, I stood up and did some stretches. “I’m going to go out back and do some training,” I said. I didn't want what happened to me the day before to ever happen again. I almost got killed by a measly wolf!

Okay, it was technically a genuine Chakra beast and therefore very dangerous—but still!

Ryu nodded in approval. “I'm glad you're finally taking your training seriously. If you hadn’t suggested it yourself, I was going to have to force you to train more,” he said, and I had a feeling he wasn't joking.

The Hayabusa compound wasn't enormous considering it was only me and my brother, but it was still a pretty large property. Much bigger and more spacious than the average civilian could afford in this village. The large backyard was my favorite part. Ryu had set it up as a great mini-training ground. There were also seals along the tall walls to prevent people from spying on the property.

How did the seals work? No clue, bullshit ninja magic, that’s how. I had a feeling I was going to need to raise my Mind and Tech stats before I could begin messing with dangerous sealing Jutsus. I just needed to figure out how to raise those stats first.

The only stats I’d gotten any XP in were Body and Luck. Both of them were sitting at 100 / 1000 XP for the next level.

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Body was easy enough to figure out. I just needed to exercise.

As for Luck, I wasn't really sure how I got that XP. I suspected it was from me getting lucky when my brother saved my life, but I couldn’t exactly go and test that theory a second time.

Actually, I just didn’t want to. If all else fails, I can just go gambling. I might only be 13 years old, but as a ninja, it's legal for me to gamble and drink within the confines of the village. Is that kind of messed up? Yes, it is. But the village opinion seems to be “old enough to kill, old enough to do whatever the fuck you want.”

I giggled to myself as I laid down on my stomach. I placed my arms to my sides and pushed myself up. “One! Two! Three…”

I managed to do 30 push-ups in a row before my arms started burning so badly that I had to stop. It was a decent number for a teenage girl, but not great for a Kunoichi already out of the academy. I had a lot of catching up to do, but I was confident I could handle it. I'm not a quitter, and a little pain wasn't going to scare me away!

*+10 Body XP!*

‘Awesome,’ I thought sarcastically. “Only 890 XP more to go before Body Rank 2… If I'm doing the math right, then that’s only 2,670 more push-ups… and my arms are already killing me.”

*+10 Mind XP!*

“…This is going to be a long day. I can already tell.” Especially since I just figured out math gives Mind XP…

I kept going for hours. My clothes were drenched in sweat, but I refused to stop. When my arms gave out, I switched to sit-ups. When my stomach muscles protested in agony, I switched to squats. And when my legs burned, I pulled out some old textbooks from my bedroom and started reading until I could move again. It wasn’t just math that leveled up my Mind Stat, it was learning in general. Unfortunately, reading for pleasure didn’t give me XP, though I did find a couple of trashy romance novels hidden under Kasumi’s bed.

Ryu had come and gone a few times over the past hours, checking on me and offering exercise pointers. I could tell he was impressed with my new training regime, but he still seemed weirded out by the fact that his formerly lazy sister was actually exercising of her own free will.

Finally, when the sun was already halfway set and the entire day had gone by, I did it. After almost 1,000 push-ups, hundreds of squats, and a seemingly endless number of sit-ups, one of my stats fully ranked up!

*Body has reached Rank 2! New perks unlocked!*

Body 2 / 20 (0/2000 XP)

(+Click here to view available Body Perks+)

“Finally!” I exclaimed cheerfully, throwing my arms up in the air and doing a little celebration dance. I was glad Ryu had left for a while because I probably looked crazy randomly cheering over nothing.

But it wasn’t nothing for me. I could feel a change physically rippling through me. I could even see the change. I wasn’t flabby by any means, but I wasn’t packing a lot of muscle before. My body was transforming before my eyes. I lifted my shirt and saw that my skin had tightened as my abs became more defined. My arms and legs both grew more toned. I felt stronger, maybe twice as strong as before.

I started shadow boxing and was amazed at how much faster and stronger my jabs felt. I wasn’t quite superhuman yet, but I had a way to fix that. I browsed through all the perks last night. The Ninja System allowed me to view the available perks for every stat up to Rank 5.

There were many good ones that I wanted, but the immediate one became available after I unlocked Body Rank 2:

*The Legacy of Ashura: Allows you to enhance your body and muscles with Chakra.*

This perk was absolutely crucial in this world. Chakra was everything here, and every single powerful person enhanced themselves with it in combat. Pure physical strength could only take a person so far. This was also a skill I could learn naturally, but I didn't have that kind of time. According to the old textbooks I'd been reading, it took people years to learn how to properly circulate chakra through their bodies.

The other reason I decided to start with this perk was because it would give me a way to start grinding my Spirit Stat as well. Spirit controlled my Chakra capacity, I would need to raise it before I could start practicing actual Jutsu and which would then raise my Tech Stat.

My rise to power all started from this single perk! I willed the perk to activate, and I suddenly felt much lighter! Was this what Chakra felt like? It felt absolutely amazing, it felt like my entire body was completely supercharged with energy and that I could accomplish anything now!

It also drained my reserves pretty rapidly. Looking at my Stat Sheet, I could see that I was losing about 1 Chakra Point every second I enhanced myself. I turned it off when my Chakra decreased by half and I felt myself start to grow mentally tired.

*+20 Spirit XP!*

“Ufufu… all according to Keikaku…” I muttered to myself as I saw the latest notification. I grinned and rubbed my hands together like a supervillain whose plans were finally coming together.

“You alright, Kasumi? You’re acting kind of weird…” Ryu’s voice sounded from directly behind me.

I let out a squeak and quickly spun around. When did he get here!? I felt my cheeks heat up from the embarrassment of him seeing my edgy display. “R–Ryu… welcome back.”

He smirked at me. “You don’t need to be embarrassed, little sis. I remember acting the same way when I finally discovered how to enhance myself with Chakra. Now you just need to learn tree-walking and water-walking, and you’ll be a respectable Kunoichi. You’ll be slaying monsters and going on your own assassination missions soon enough!” he said proudly, as if those were both perfectly normal things. In this world, they technically were.

“That’s the plan,” I said before my stomach let out a loud growl. I might have been so enthusiastic with my training that I skipped lunch.

Ryu held up the takeout bag in his hand. “I'm glad you're hungry; I got takoyaki for dinner tonight. Come in and eat. You’ve done enough training for today. I'm proud of you, Kasumi,” he told me sincerely, and I smiled back at him. “You’re still in recovery, you should take it easier tomorrow and explore the village. Your ‘best friend’ also stopped by earlier to talk to you but I told her you were busy,” he added, although he looked pained to tell me that.

“...Best friend?” I asked while tilting my head.