‘This library sucks, everything sucks!’ Hiro lamented in his heart as he lazily turned the pages of the basic seals book he was reading. This book was another bust, the only thing it did was define what seals were and what they could do, not a single instruction. He supposed that the leaf village thought things like sealing and medical ninjutsu were something a shinobi should learn at one’s discretion.

This wasn’t the only thing that was nagging at him. In class, two days out of the week are reserved for physical conditioning, where there are obstacle courses, competitions, and simple things like running until you puke or faint. This wasn’t what bothered him though, it was the fact that these kids were outclassing him. How embarrassing was it to be physically bested by mere children? While he was near the top of the class in academics, for obvious reasons, he was dead last in the physical portion, which was apparently fifty percent of his grade. He had come to this shocking revolution, last week when Yuto sensei handed him his quarterly report.

He had tried to use chakra to enhance his physical capabilities during competitions but found that his stamina was pitiful. His chakra reserves must’ve been the size of an ant. At first, he cursed his fate but then came to the logical conclusion that he had only just awakened chakra, and he was merely a small child, at least that is what he told himself to calm his nerves.

To catch up, he dedicated his free time to studying and training. This was easier to manage than he had first presumed for two reasons. First, he was obsessed with the idea of having supernatural powers. Second, there was nothing better to do. No friends, no family, no phone, and no video games. What else was he to do other than train? Well, they have books here, but he was not really interested in that because he felt like he was living in a book. That, and he didn’t know any author other than Jiraiya and he was not going to stoop low enough to read his books.

At least that was the excuse he gave himself. Truth be told, he was too poor to buy a stupid book. He recently spent all of his allowance on a much-needed upgrade of attire.

He was currently wearing a high collar, dark blue, jacket with a zipper, which was left unzipped with a white undershirt along with a pair of black cargo pants and black closed-toe shoes. Was he the only one who thought that sandals were extremely impractical for a ninja? On the contrary, atop his head was something he felt was entirely practical for a ninja, goggles. He would never admit it, but they were mostly a cool fashion statement to him. He never understood why Naruto stopped wearing them. In his opinion, he thought he looked cool, like Ikki from Air Gear.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Tanaka, are you going to spend all of your time in the library? Why don’t you spend some time outside and train?” A heavy-set, bald man said as he towered over the boy. Hiro recognized him as the headmaster of the academy. The headmaster had come to know this boy by name—he ran into him often in the library.

“Sorry sir, I’m just a little discouraged from training at the moment, I just returned from the store where they want twenty thousand ryo for training weights.” Hiro sighed.

“That’s no excuse, training weights are no good for a boy your age, they’ll stunt your growth. You oughtta know that, I’ve seen your grades, you’re quite the bookworm.” The headmaster lectured.

“Yes sir, I’ll keep that in mind.” Hiro obeyed as he shuffled his way around the headmaster to leave.

“By the way, do you remember my announcement in class this morning?” The headmaster said while tapping his foot and crossing his arms.

‘He made an appearance in class this morning?’

“Yes sir.”

“Oh really? What was it?”

“...”

“That’s what I thought brat! You were asleep from the moment I entered to the moment I left! Why do you always lie?” The headmaster said angrily

“Isn’t that what a shinobi does? I’m just training.” Hiro said in an annoyingly unironic tone.

*SIGH* ”Anyways we have a special guest coming tomorrow, so I need you to be on your best behavior. No sleeping!” The headmaster replied.

“Hmm? Special guest? Like a higher-up that makes sure we’re being taught right?” In his past life, Hiro remembered when teachers would be inspected by some random person he didn’t recognize, and the teacher always seemed to put more effort into those day’s lessons.

“No, I’m the person who oversees that. This is a guest speaker, he will be talking about something called the will of fire.” The headmaster said with a smirk, not wanting to spoil the surprise.

“The… what?” Hiro’s heart dropped. That could only be one person. It looked like he was about to meet his first canon character. He was not expecting to meet a big shot so soon!