Welcome back to the Smoke and Mirrors AU.

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Hattori panted as he sat on the steps of his wooden cabin. His tanto, a dark red now from the blood of many animals, sat next to him in a roughed up scabbard. The trees around him were all embedded with Kunai in various clusters, imaginary targets Hattori had been throwing at.

The boy groaned as he went around collecting them; the simple task took around half an hour of effort, but it wasn’t as exhaustive as the imaginary battle he had been fighting before. Hattori’s Bochigan flared as he picked up the various Bukijutsu tools.

He had been training to keep it on since he’d awoken it – every time he ran out of Chakra, he noticed he could have it active longer than the last time he’d done so. Since he was training everything else, he’d thought it good to do that too.

He was plucking the last Kunai from a tree when he noticed something odd. He tossed the Kunai into the box with the rest, before hiding it in his house and grabbing his tanto.

There were six odd blots of ghastly-white outlines, in the same shape as a human, nearly a hundred meters in the distance, and they were moving quickly. Hattori frowned, as he deactivated his Bochigan; the lights disappeared.

With a small surge of Chakra, he reactivated his Dojutsu – and they appeared again. He didn’t wait to try and figure out what this meant. He could tell, somehow, that he was seeing those people from such a far distance away.

They would arrive in less than ten seconds. Hattori blasted out of his house at a speed he hadn’t known he was capable of, pushing everything into getting to them before they got to him.

He didn’t want them to destroy his home. If they were hostile, his eyes hardened and his face steeled, he would kill them. And if he lost, then he just wasn’t strong enough.

The two groups met each other nearly fifty meters away from Hattori’s cabins. The six wore standard Samurai attire, each with a state-given Tanto. Their white, plated armour and weapon indicated they were Samurai still employed by the Daimyo.

“Samurai-san,” his voice was high-pitched and sounded unserious in this situation. He cursed it, hating his young voice and body. “Why are you visiting here?” He was keenly aware that his own blade was a state-given Tanto, stained a dark red by the blood of animals he’d hunted with it, and the blood of the people the previous owner had slain.

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One of them noticed his sword, and whispered something to what seemed to be the leader. “You wield a Samurai’s Tanto. Why is that, boy?”

Hattori was silent for a few seconds, before responding. “My parents were slain by a Ronin wielding a sword named ‘Kubikiribocho.’ A Samurai slaughtered him, before he could take my head off too. He entrusted his Tanto with me, taking the other blade for himself.”

They frowned, and looked at eachother. “You know the symbolism behind a Samurai forfeiting their blade, yes?”

The boy grunted. “Yes. It symbolizes them defecting, and becoming a Ronin. But he didn’t defect. He gave it to me to protect myself.”

They shared a few looks between each other. “The graves of your parents, will you show them to us? We will pay our respects, before leaving your land. We only came this way to patrol the border with the Land of Water, a few hours east of here.”

Hattori nodded, his body a bit stiff and unwilling, but he couldn’t deny them without reason. He sheathed the Tanto back into its scabbard, before leading the sextet of Samurai to the graves of his parents.

“My father’s name,” he pointed to the grave with the Kanji for father, “his name was Biko Yanmaru. My mother’s name,” he pointed to the grave with the Kanji for mother, “her name was Rika Yanmaru.”

At this, the six Samurai visibly relaxed, finally believing the little child who had dashed towards them with a blade drawn was truly just trying to protect himself and his home. They stayed for nearly an hour at the graves, paying homage to civilians they never knew, before departing east to the border of the Land of Waves.

It was only when his Bochigan could no longer see their outlines that Hattori could relax himself. The autumn Sun was still high in the sky, and like any other twelve-year old, he knew that meant he wasn’t done training for the day.

Two weeks passed before the Samurai passed by Hattori’s home again, this time without incident. The next few months passed without incident, either. It was very, very late on the night of December 31st, or if the glowing blue panel that presented itself in front of Hattori was right, very, very early on January 1st, that proved troublesome.

Congratulations on becoming thirteen!

As you are now of legal age to become a Clan Head in the Land of Fire,

You have awoken the Founder’s System.

He’d only just finished reading it, before the next panel came.

As Heir to the Yanmaru Clan

You have been given the goal of making your Clan a major force in this world.

To do that, you need Clan Members.

The screen flashed again after he’d read it. By now, Hattori was more than a little bit confused. What the fuck was this weird hallucination? He let his Bochigan come to life, hoping it could dispel it or something.

For Awakening the Founder’s System

You’ve been given a Starter Pack Gift of Ten Clan Members.

These Clan Members will be of varying quality, but all will have your Kekkei Genkai.

Each Clan Member given by the System will be created at Age Five.

It is your job as Clan Head to train them into becoming proper Shinobi.

Good Luck!

As soon as the blue screen had come, it was gone – and ten distinctly ghost-white outlines, those of children, appeared instantly outside of his home. Hattori Yanmaru, in his now-thirteen years of life, did not know what he was supposed to do at the moment.

Even with the constant instinct guiding him from the Bochigan, it didn’t know what to do either. Utterly confused, the boy left his house, and was greeted by ten children that were kneeling at him in obedience.

“Hail, Clan Leader Hattori!”