My classmates were strong. It made sense that clan kids would have a leg up, but I hadn't expected them to be equal to or better than me. Sure, I'd enrolled late by at least an year, but I'd been training with my parents, two chunin, every opportunity I could, and worked on my own outside of that. Seriously, what were they putting in the milk around here?
In the academic disciplines, I was always at the top of the board with my cousin Ido behind me. I had graduated from college in my past life, so elementary mathematics was no sweat for me.
Battle tactics and history were also easy for me due to my past life. I'd watched a lot of documentaries on medieval wars and battles and seen most of Naruto, so I knew who all the important figures were and what they did.
The athletic aspect of the class was a different matter entirely.
"Oof!" I grunted as I was knocked flat on my back for the third time in a row.
"That's enough!" Sensei called, sounding bored. "The winner is Miyu Uchiha. Make the seal of reconciliation."
I had a frown fixed on my face as I stood up and begrudgingly held my hand out to the smug Uchiha girl who'd handed me my ass.
She completed the seal of reconciliation with an impassive look on her face, as if I was inconsequential, then went back to stand with her clanmates. Somehow, an Uchiha could look dismissive and arrogant at the same time. It must have been one of the abilities they gained from their bloodline.
I hung my head as I left the sparring ring.
I wasn't bad at sparring, but I wasn't good either. I hovered around the upper middle rankings of our class. I was similarly ranked in weapon disciplines and the foot races our class held at the end of every week. That would be good for a kid to show to their parents for them to be proud, but it wasn't enough to rise to be strong enough for me to bring my plan to fruition.
I'd asked my parents for help training, but they were picking up missions again. Apparently, now that they didn't need to watch me, they wanted to get back out there. I neglected to mention they weren't there all that much to begin with, but that was just my bitterness at getting my ass beat by a little girl showing.
I sighed as I watched a Hyuga kid absolutely body one of my civilian classmates. The scrawny kid didn't have a chance.
"Winner Misa Hyuga. Make the seal of reconciliation." Sensei called.
"What! No way, sensei! I can still fight!" the civilian kid said as he forced himself to his feet, his teeth grit in pain.
Sensei looked at him tiredly. "You're outside the circle, Jiro. Make the seal and get out of the way so the next pair can go."
The civilian, Jiro, had a nasty look on his face as he made the seal of reconciliation before stomping off to pout. It was really childish. His arms were crossed, his head was hung, his bottom lip was even stuck out. He almost looked like…
I looked down at myself. I was sitting exactly like him. I grunted and righted my posture. I refused to pout. I did not pout, I schemed. Yes. Scheming was much better than pouting. I was going to plot and scheme and figure out a way to beat the smug indifference off that Uchiha girl's face. I didn't know how indifference could be smug, but the Uchiha somehow managed it.
I took a deep breath to calm down. It was hard to properly plan when you let your emotions run rampant. My goal here was to improve my physical capabilities. How could I go about that?
The first thing that came to mind was trying to track down Might Guy and show him my youth, but I did away with that thought immediately. Might Guy was one of the strongest Jonin in Konoha. Well or would be considering the timeline.
But the point was he didn't have time to train random Academy kids, and even if he did, I had other things I wanted to work on in addition to my physical capabilities. I wanted to work on jutsu.
I was a Nara, descended from a long line of ninja. As a result, my chakra capacity was well above average. I didn't have as much as an Uchiha or a Senju would, but even as an academy student, I already had equal or more than your typical genin.
That was a lot. As a Nara, I would also likely be taught the clan's signature shadow-based ninjutsu, but I didn't want to be just another Nara.
I wanted to excel. I wanted to have options other than holding my enemy in place for my team to kill them. Shadow imitation was incredibly useful, but relying on a single tool was a good way to wind up dead in the ninja world. I wanted to explore other ways to use my chakra.
But that was for the future, for now, I still needed to find a way to get better with taijutsu. My parents weren't around much, and bothering the other Nara clan members for lessons might make me into a nuisance, so I'd rather avoid that if possible. They might just ban me from the the clan compound of I did not let them have their lazy time.
Still, what did that leave? It wasn't like I could walk up to an Uchiha and ask for help.
I looked around at my classmates as a thought occurred to me.
…Actually, why couldn't I? There were several students in my class that were all far ahead of me in taijutsu, likely due to their parent's and clan's teaching.
Why couldn't I get one of them to help me? I'd need to have something they wanted to trade for lessons, but that wasn't too hard to work out. I was the top academic student in the class. I could barter tutoring in academics for tutoring in taijutsu and weapon training. But who to approach?
My eyes wandered back to Miyu, the Uchiha girl that had beaten me. I frowned and shook my head.
No. I could swallow my pride and ask her for help in the interest of getting strong, but closely associating with the Uchiha wasn't a good idea right now. From what I remembered of the plot, the Uchiha massacre would occur in the somewhat near future – I wasn't familiar enough with the series to know the exact timeline – and I didn't want to be seen as a traitor associated with them.
And I did not want to bond with any of them because that would make it worse when they die and ai could have stopped their deaths somehow. And it's not like their deaths would awaken my Sharingan sso there was no benefit to that too.
Now, I hear what you're saying. Why am I not trying to stop the Uchiha massacre? Am I heartless? Don't I care for my fellow villagers?
Let's see how that would go, shall we?
'Hokage-sama! Your best friend Danzo is totally a traitor that's going to get the Uchiha killed!'
At best, the Hokage laughs me off as childish naivete. Most likely, I get severely reprimanded for questioning my elders and making up tall tales. At worst, I either get thrown in T&I or Danzo scoops me up and disappears me. Or before I could even report it, a root shinobi kidnaps me and tortures me to find all my secrets.
'Oh, I know! I'll become Itachi's friend and convince him to stop!'
Become the friend of a psychopath willing to murder his entire family on the orders of a bunch of controlling old coots? I don't care how good his intentions were. If my friend is willing to kill me because someone told them to, they aren't my friend.
Besides, Itachi wasn't at the Academy. He'd likely already graduated and didn't want to put up with Academy kids talking to him when he's off doing actual combat stuff.
'I'll use my super reincarnated skills to fight off Itachi and stop the massacre myself!'
Hmm, what's wrong with this idea? It could definitely work. Oh right! Obito.
There is no Kami-damned way I could put up a farce of a fight against Itachi let alone Obito as I am right now. I've been training since my body was old enough to handle it, but I guess I wasn't drinking the same milk other self inserts were because I'm still just a kid. I haven't suddenly turned into an S-class toddler by the power of 'reasons'. As evidenced by my spar today, there are other children that can kick my ass. I'm not fighting Obito.
So, that means unless I think of something clever that will allow me to keep myself out of the firing line, I'm not doing anything to stop the Uchiha massacre. I like living, and I plan to stay alive this go around. I am not going to endanger myself for a bunch of strangers when I have no viable way of keeping everyone alive that doesn't rely on the Hokage buying the story of a kid. Even if he believed me, he would probably think I had unlocked some unknown bloodline of seeing future and set me to breeding bull duty. No thank you.
Strength. Freedom. Life. That was my nindo, and I was going to stick to it.
That meant there was no helping the Uchiha, they were doomed unless I get my golden finger that makes me powerful enough to save them.
Anyways, I still had my problem in hand. Who do I ask to help me train my Taijutsu?