Goddess of War

Academy…was a bit different from what I had been expecting. I kept expecting stuff that happened in Konoha to happen in Kiri. Abet more harsh. But it wasn't like that at all.

"Again!" The instructor screamed in the face a poor Academy student.

It was only the first day, and the class was filled with low class civilians. The age range was from 4 to 14. I was the one unfortunate enough to be the youngest, but the oldest didn't look much better either.

Malnutrition, I guessed considered how terrible he looked. The village didn't have much money to feed people. Every Academy Student had the same standard meal provided to them by their matron. The parents were either killed or separated from kids who had enough potential to be shinobi.

The nutritional requirements couldn't be met for a growing boy who was also studying to be a ninja. It just wasn't enough.

The matron in my orphanage were really nice to me. I just had to do small things for them and the reputation gains inflated and so my skills grew and the reputation inflated more. My [Cooking] skill was slowly but steadily climbing as the matrons learnt to trust my cooking skills. It was a vicious circle of self gain. Or not so vicious.

But the Academy was a different matter altogether. As long as you had chakra, you would be put in class. There was no pre-Academy test, no pre-Genin test. If the Instructor wanted you to stay in class, you would, and if they wanted you to be a genin, so you would. There was no other choice.

They found the affinity I had with chakra and the fact I already unlocked it too? They were probably screaming 'SCORE' from the top of their lungs while they put me in the Academy. Anyone could introduce new students in the Academy and if they did well, you would get rewards, if they didn't you would be punished for the waste of resources.

When the lucky shinobi found me, I was still in the infantile stages of practicing [Awareness] skill which apparently alerted all nearby ninjas to the use of chakra. The guy was praising his lucky stars for finding a prodigy, and one so eager at that. I had 'friendly' reputation with that ninja for being smart but not too smart, and for being nice enough without being an idiot.

The Instructor took it a little easy on me, considering that there were things I physically could not do. So he didn't yell in my face too much, neither did he throw any kunai at me to dodge.

I was handed a pair of kunai and shuriken the moment I walked in, and that was it. It was mine. Whatever else I found was mine. If I beat another student and got more, it was mine. If I got mine stolen, I would never get any back. It was a kill or be killed situation from the start to prepare for the 'real world'.

The other kids saw my young age and they started eyeing me. There was no theory class because what would we need of it? We were the lowest class. So no one expected us to survive. We were supposed to be the cannon fodder. The instructors said so.

They allowed students to kill other students if necessary but there would be strict punishment if there was any permanent injury like a loss of limb because they didn't want to pay for medical fees. They probably would end up killing the kid themselves unless the kid was skilled.

We were the scum of the Earth who would grow by feeding on each other. And I was thrown into this pit of snakes so they could find out whose poison was the strongest.

"Again!"

At that moment, we were learning how to show shuriken.

Let me emphasis the absurdness of that sentence. We were learning to throw shuriken on the first day. Before we got used to the weight, or to how to hold it. Before we even held it for more than 30 minutes. It was crazy.

I was doing so badly I hadn't even gotten a skill yet. Which was terrible. My hand already had lacerations from the shuriken and even though the instructor knew it, he did nothing. He kept yelling for us to keep going.

The pain would have made me cry, if I hadn't spent hours running until my legs were noodles and I kept going because I was almost there, the next level within reaching distance. I would have cried if I hadn't intentionally hurt myself to increase [Physical Resistance].

I had leveled up that skill for this very reason. I needed to keep going even when I was in pain. [Gamer's Body] didn't do much, but it decreased the pain I felt from injuries, and [Physical Resistance] would decrease the wounds. Together, they would help me get through this life.

Blood dripped from my hand drop by drop. I wasn't the only one who cut themselves but I could feel the instructor's eyes boring into my back. He was still screaming at everyone else, but he still kept an eye on me. I smirked, my bob cut hair covered it from his view and I kept throwing with different ways to hold it. Hoping one of them would trigger a skill for me.

"That's enough." Another voice interrupted the training. No one stopped. No one even looked over at who spoke. The Instructor had beaten obedience into all of us in the half hour he had with us. Even I didn't dare to look for fear of punishment.

"Stop." It was the Insttuctor's command that made all the students stop. All of us looked over at the new person. He was shorter than the Instructor but bulkier. His eyes looked as cold as ice. His voice was misleading. It had been softer but when you fit the voice with the face, it came to a terrifying result. He looked like he could kill Instructor in a blink of an eye. He looked like he could kill all of us in a blink of an eye.

He was also frowning at the Instructor.

"I apologize, sir! I will make sure they remember all their superior officers! Sir!" We watched wide eyed as the Instructor, the demon in everyone's fantasy practically begged for another chance.

"I see," was all the newest person bothered to give. His eyes scanned over everyone before stopping on one of the older children.

"You there!" The child's eye widened in fear.

"Y-Yes sir!" He squeaked out. The man gave no other reaction.

"He will do this time." He nodded at the Instructor and walked out. The Instructor glared at the boy until he moved his feet. When they were in touching distance, he grabbed the child's arm, almost wrenching it out.

"Do as he says, boy, or you won't live past this day." He hissed out before shoving the boy out. He looked back once, fear blooming in his eyes but no one moved. The door closed on his despairing expression. None of us ever saw the boy again.

I focused on the Instructor who had already dismissed the boy, but he had an air of irritation and he expressed that by taking it out on us. I would have thought it was because of that man shaming the Instructor, was it not for something nagging at me that that wasn't it. The Instructor looked hostile to that man. The Instructor didn't trust him.

Now I needed to know if that man was an enemy for me or not. And if he was, I needed to avoid him like crazy.

You have trusted your instincts! You have unlocked a new skill!

Instinct: Level 1

Every ninja has a sixth sense that tells them where the danger lies and if they need to duck at any random point in their life! You can judge situations based on your level.

I silently dismissed the notification, amused that the game had found a way to reinforce my gut instincts. I really did have a hand in the creation of this game…

After that, we were told that everyone was above us. If someone ever commanded us to do something, we would do it or we would die. He also threw in information about the location of the library and that it was open all night. General information could be found there but if anyone wanted to give information to a spy from there, they were out of luck because there was no valuable information.

But that in itself, was a gold mine for me. I needed to read. To keep reading until my INT increased. If my INT increased, so would my chakra pool.

Stronger. Stronger. Stronger.

More and more strength to get through life. To kill people. To either leave this village or own it.

Throughout the month, the Instuctor kept an eye on me. On the second day, he actually showed us how to throw shuriken because everyone who tried for the first time was terrible at it. The older students kept to themselves. They didn't talk to the younger students, they didn't talk to each other, they just went on with their lives with a skeletal expression. It was eerie.

To the people who already lost their weapons… Well, they couldn't participate obviously. They couldn't learn a single skill. But in the first week, I got two skills because of all that happened.

Projectile: Level 4

Anything can be thrown. Now you have the ability to throw things with a certain level of accuracy.

-Accuracy at 40%

-Backlash of any kind is less by 40%

Stealth: Level 1

You can sneak away from people you dislike, or wish to hide from.

-People cannot sense you 1% of the time

-Your movement is slowed by 99%

They were really good skills considering they were in percentile format. But unless I leveled them all up to MAX Level, it wasn't 100% safe to use out in the field. But necessity would make me a master of it sooner or later.

And because of the brilliance that was [Inventory], even when I was found, they still couldn't find my weapons. They punched me, kicked me but in the end, they were forced to leave me alone. The funny thing was…even with those bullies, I had 'friendly' reputation.

They kept on searching for me all weeklong, thankfully, increasing my [Stealth] to level 10 and each time they found me, they let me go with less beating than the last time. Each time my reputation with them would increase even though they got frustrated with my rising skill.

There was an addition that appeared with [Stealth] leveling to 10.

Stealth: Level 10

You can sneak away from people you dislike, or wish to hide from. Uses of chakra can now be hidden.

-People cannot sense you 10% of the time

-Your movement is slowed by 90%

It was surprising that even chakra could be hidden like that. Or maybe it couldn't but only I could? There were a lot of things unique only to me because of Gamer System. Like chakra control.

I only use as much as required for the technique. I don't waste chakra. At all. Also, I can't fail to use a technique I already know, and as I continue using it, my skill will increase so it's even more effective than before.

Just the fact that even if I sleep a month away, my skills won't become rusty is a big thing. So many ninjas die because of a 'bad day' or because they couldn't perform like they always do.

Every day for a week I kept to the same routine. Self discipline wasn't exactly what I was known for in my last life, but here, training was addicting. Looking at the stats, was addicting. Knowing that you were getting better with every step, was addicting.

After Academy finished, I would run back to the matron and then nag her to let me cook. Let me say, I could already make better food than her because she always had limited amount of vegetables and meat to feed all of us and because of my [Cooking] skill, food that was ordinary would taste delicious every time I made it. I never put in any spices, I just used the cooking basics that I knew of and viola! It was amazing.

Everyone else already considered me a goddess of food simply because my [Cooking] skill. The other kids, even the ones older than me would run around calling me 'Izumi-nee'. It was adorable. The ones in the same class were actually more friendly with me than each other.

The more these people ate my food, the more my reputation increased. I was at 'honoured' reputation with every one of them. And the matron was slowly inching to 'exalted'. It was crazy. Just by steadily cooking food for them, I could have enough power to order them to go against the freaking Kage of the Village.

The rest of the Village wasn't that bad. The Instructor was blunt and cruel but he had limits, even though he took the cruelty too far. Kiri was a scary place, no doubt, but if you were strong…you had a lot to gain as well. As long as I became a ninja, the civilians would lose power to bother me. Heck, ninjas would lose power to bother me to a certain extent too!

That man who came to the Academy and picked that kid couldn't do it to anyone who was a shinobi. To kill other shinobi, you needed the order of the Mizukage, but Academy was mostly fair game.

The man had to have some amount of influence with the Mizukage, and he could only 'disappear' people who were low class civilians.

Anyway, after I cooked, which I now did everyday because I was an Academy Student now, and thus 'responsible' enough, I trained for a few hours.

Mostly, I ran, to increase my [Run] skill, but I also practiced [Projectile]. I could increase the skill as long as I was throwing something. Anything. It could be a ball of paper, even. Or rocks. Since I didn't want my weapons to degrade and break before I even became genin, so I used rocks.

I reached level 5 in it before it stopped leveling. I could hit the target with every throw. After trying to level it for one day to no avail, I realized what the problem was. I needed moving targets. So I would throw on rock high up, then hit it with another as it came down. Funny enough, it actually ended up increasing my STR.

Then after training, I went to the library, the place of hidden treasures.

The library was, firstly, a Kiri version of Information Centre. A scary and intimidating version. The farther you went, the more information you would have, and needless to say, the library was jealously guarded.

Academy Student was only allowed on the ground floor. The first time had been a surprise but the chunin on duty had taken the time to explain it to me. I had to request a library card from any Academy teacher and as I went up in rank, I would have to go to Mizukage Tower and update it every time.

I had asked Instructor for a library card after class ended, which was apparently enough to shift my reputation to 'friendly' with him. Crazy, but I didn't focus on it too much because it was obvious why. He liked what he saw in me.

He had given me a card and sent me on my way to the library. I took vicious vicious advantage of the 24 hour open rule. The Gamer erased a certain level of exhaustion and I had already learnt to stay awake for a few nights in a row trying to max out [Meditation] then [Awareness].

I stayed up one night in the library studying and leveling [Awareness] and therefore, [Stealth] that tried to hide my chakra from the Anbu, and the next night I would sleep. In just a week of studying, my INT stat and therefore my chakra pool had increased.

Status

Name: Izumi Kawaguchi

Title: The Gamer

Class: Low class civilian

Level: 1

Exp: 0%

HP: 147/147 (HP regeneration: 1.4% per hour)

CP: 517/517 (CP regeneration: 9.5% per hour)

STR: 3

VIT: 14.7 (1+7.2+6.5)

DEX: 7.5 (1+6.5)

INT: 37

WIS: 95 (41+54)

LUK: 17

Status Points: 0

After the first week, we started conditioning. And there, my pitiful strength stat embarrassed me. 1 was the strength of an infant. My STR was 3. It was shameful. I couldn't even do a single push-up.

The Instructor had high hopes and ended up being disappointed in me. I literally feel the disappointment while I pushed myself to actually finish doing push-ups.

After the first humiliating day, I trained all night instead of going to the library. I didn't even train my [Run] or [Projectile] skill. All I did was strength training until I felt like my arms would break and I still pushed myself to complete a set, then another.

I was motivated like crazy and because of The Gamer which meant I didn't have to always condition my body to maintain my physical stats, I could go crazy. I could do enough strength training to break down my muscles, heal in 10 minutes due to Gamer's Body and be back at it soon after.

Chakra could maintain muscles for a certain amount of time, but it always ended up on conditioning that you had to do at least once a week to maintain your physique.

But like Gai and Lee, if you trained every day monstrously, you could become a beast. Adding weights on top of all that training? No wonder Gai almost destroyed Madara. But that kind of training wasn't possible without absolute knowledge about the body. The pin point peak where your body could reach without harming himself? Perfection. Not to mention the fearlessness you had to express to take yourself to the brink of your limit.

Gai was crazy. He was amazing. They only reason I could train anywhere close to something like that, is because of Gamer's Body that negated damage from training and turned everything into skill points.

The next day, everyone called my first day weakness a fluke and I successfully apologized for training to the point of self-sabotage, earning a new skill due to the successful lie by omission.

Misinform: Level 1

You can now successfully give or portray false information or impression to your audience.

-Success chance 10%

I dismissed it, feeling uncomfortable. I was never good with lies. In my last life, I was big on honesty. I was good at detecting dishonesty and it made me unable trust even basic information if I knew someone had actually lied for some reason or the other.

Of course, I had forgotten. The ninja world traded in misinformation and half-truths. I would have had to learn it eventually considering a War was imminent and more than that, a civil war was going to descend on our heads soon.

The third week was a little different from the first two weeks. Where we had mostly focused on one thing or the other, the third week consisted of three things- conditioning, theory and weapons.

Every day in the morning, we had conditioning and after cool down, we would have a bit of theory about the structure of our Village. The names of famous figures like all the Seven Swordsmen to ever be, even the current ones and the Kages or any individual who had distinguished themselves due to their skill with ninjutsu or sword.

The most famous figures in the Village were, of course, the Seven Swordsmen. Seven S ranked shinobi that Kiri boasted was its unfaltering pride. Along with its two jinchuriki, but that wasn't really told to Academy Students. Or genins, for the matter.

After theory class, we were back to weapon throwing. He nodded in satisfaction when I hit all ten targets in the dead center red dot inside the larger yellow central one. A lot of the students other than me had been practicing as well and their accuracy showed it.

Instructor leveled up half of the students to throwing at moving targets. My [Projectile] skill was at 6. The leveling had slowed epically after level 5 but I was very close to a level up. I knew it. So I wasn't surprised when midway through throwing at targets my skill leveled and I hit almost every target in the center, or close to it.

We were then showed to a course that we would have to attempt once a day and hit all the targets that moved in and out of view randomly. There were, of course, different levels for different skill level.

The first student who attempted it, fell into a pit he lingered too long at while trying to throw kunai. Instructor reluctantly fetched him when his desperate screams when up by a pitch.

The second person was an older student. She smirked, obviously having been through the course once before. She went through the course, managing to throw her weapons at the targets before a target came up at her mid-jump and they collided. She glared at the ground, unable to glare at the Instructor.

The next one was actually from my orphanage and I smiled at him encouragingly. He gulped nervously before bravely facing the course. He was surprisingly good actually. She went through the names of the kids there before coming up with it.

Haru Matsura.

He managed the first pit, hit the targets, jumped and rolled under the incoming target and threw a kunai backward before he kept going and then activated two traps. The first pushed him into the path of the second. He had to throw his last kunai to deflect two shuriken coming at him. Without any more weapons at hand, he also failed his first attempt.

I gave him a subtle thumbs-up. He was better than me at throwing weapons. That was amazing, considering he didn't have a skill that could make him improve just by repeating the same action a million times.

He smiled back shyly before going to stand with the people who were done. There were two more people before me. The one before me actually managed to go across the whole obstacle course in the first go. He was a senior student as well.

I started running as soon as he was clear of the course. The Instructor didn't like to keep telling people to start already. We were to judge when to start and do it ourselves. Instructor was there to observe our performance.

The moment I landed on the first pit, I jumped and it was obviously not a moment too late because the pit opened up a little too fast. But I didn't have time to glare at Instructor.

The targets spun as it appeared and I had to throw my shuriken mid-jump, hoping it was enough. I didn't have enough time to tuck and roll so I put faith in my hard work and punched through target in front of my face with a kunai in my hand.

The shattered pieces cut my cheek and closed one eye to prevent any pieces from entering my eye. From memory, I made a long jump crossing the two traps on the ground. I slid to the left to avoid a blade that dropped from nowhere to cleave me in two.

I spotted the last target from the corner of my eye and a wire speeding horizontally towards me. I threw my kunai and rolled under the wire, avoiding the second trap just as it opened up under the cleaving blade.

The pit was in a perfect place if a student wasn't able to avoid the blade, the Instructor could open up the pit so they wouldn't die.

That was the supposed end of the course completed by the previous student, but I was a little wary because of the increased speed for me and the spinning targets. But nothing happened so I went back and collected the three weapons.

Both of my shuriken had landed vertically dead center of the spinning target and I took satisfaction in that. Even with the spinning, if you aimed for the dead center the rotation wouldn't knock it off course. But it was still lucky to land so perfectly specially because I hadn't maxed out [Projectile] yet.

My last target was a little off, but it was still on the target. Which I considered a win because I had just barely seen it. When I went back, I nodded encouragingly at the other student who was from the same orphanage as me and he gave a confident but hollow grin.

The first day I thought this obstacle course was the last thing we had to do, but after everyone completed the course in one piece, Instructor sat us down and made us take our weapons.

Every single student was taught to take care of their weapons. If anyone was unable to do it, he sneered but he still sat down with that person to show them how to do it slowly and reverently. He nodded when he saw me and I actually respected the man for being so diligent about taking care of weapons.

Of course, what was I thinking? I was in Kiri. It was known for its famous weapons. Of course, they knew how to take care of their own weapons. They made it.

That makes you think about the shinobi being weapon theory, right? But Kiri was a little like how the Ninja World was. They had successfully re-created the view of the world down into a Village.

It tells a person a lot about what the people thought when they created the Villages. There were five Major Villages made into the what the Kage thought the Village should be.

Hashirama Senju obviously wanted the children to have a peaceful childhood.

But on the opposite hand, the First Mizukage thought the Village would represent the way of the World. Maybe this kind of ruthless view was why Konoha was called the most peaceful and kind village of all the Major Five.

But I was grateful that I was born in Kiri than Konoha. When you separate the kindness from the cruelty, the depths of both were unimaginable. It was better for it to be more open like all the other villages were.

I understood why Tobirama created their Anbu for the darker part of shinobi life and why he may have believed it would succeed. That was because he was ignorant.

Even he must have wanted to nurture the hope that was the Village. So he separated the good from the bad, and his legacy, Sarutobi and Danzo did the same to a much greater extent.

In my previous life, the UN held all the power but also not really. The US was the strongest power and it swayed the views of the world as it wished. And part of that was what needed to happen.

I don't know what happened after the story of Naruto other than a vague idea that he married Hinata and had kids but I knew one thing for certain.

There were no major changes and with the way the world was going, they Kage would forget the Forth War and because of differences might start fighting again, and based on the bad feeling I had, that was probably [Instinct] warning me.

That was unacceptable.

I had the knowledge of a World that was mostly peace other than internal strife. I needed to use that to create a better place.

Quest System unlocked!

Quest created!

A World of Peace!

Create a workable system based on your knowledge that would lead the Elemental Nations into Peace.

-Create a Council-

-Amend Laws-

-De-militarization-

-Profession changes for the next generation-

Reward- Title 'Creator of the New World' , Experience "Peace" , Another chance at Reincarnation possible.

Failure- The Elemental Nations will fall into War after your existence is gone, Another chance at Reincarnation might be possible.

I gaped at the screen.

Changes to skills

Cooking: Level 41 - 44

Run: Level 65 - 70

Stealth: Level 15

Projectile: Level 7

Instinct: Level 1

Awareness: Level 54 - 56

Misinform: Level 1