Reincarnation of the Aburame God (Naruto Fanfic)

"Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own."

- Bruce Lee

...

They set up a circuit for the final year classes of the Ninja Academy. The circuit was like a marathon held inside the Academy.

The first part of this circuit was to enter the forest behind the academy and hit at least three targets in the first thirty meters. Depending on your aim, this could take a long time or be quick.

Professor Suzume, a woman in a white kimono and bottle glasses, would supervise this part. This pleased some students because she wasn't known for having good eyesight.

The second stage of the circuit was to cross a river. Although the river was shallow and calm, swimming across it was not allowed. For the test, the participants needed to cross it by walking on water, which is why they referred to this stage as chakra control. This test would be supervised by Hizashi-sensei, who was known for being a very strict teacher and would give no one a good time.

Finally, there would be a huge gorge. Dozens of wooden stakes awaited. The students had to balance on them and jump from one to the other until they reached the other side.

Hizashi thought the test was too dangerous. But Daikoku-sensei was proud of his earth style. He had created the gorge and wanted test this.

'It's a training circuit for children. But my old body couldn't even run it, let alone with all the obstacles.'

The students would be released in groups of five at a time so that there wouldn't be any confusion at the start. Therefore, the speed at which the children completed the exercises would not be measured, but whether they completed them. Naturally, it was expected that someone from the first group would come first and so on, but Hizashi-sensei seemed uncertain about this given the difficulty of the last test.

Asuma and Kurenai were placed in the first group, mixed with three students from my class.

In the next group was Masayuki Yamanaka, the boy who made fun of Aiden whenever he could. Might Guy was also in that group, and there were others with them.

I was only placed in the tenth group, which meant I couldn't test my skills against those I admired.

When the officials released my group at the starting line, I started running. The other kids next to me were surprisingly fast, too. But I realized I wasn't near my limit. So that's what I did. Stretching my arms back, I ran faster and left my groupmates behind, soon reaching the forest where the targets were.

I spotted the first target painted on the trunk of a tree to my right. I took a shuriken out of my pocket and threw it, striking the center of the target with precision.

Further into the forest, there were many lost students looking for the camouflaged targets. Some of them even turned off the road to find them.

Among these students was Masayuki. He was holding a kunai in his hand and seemed to be looking for something high up, so he didn't even notice me as he approached.

"Where's that target I just saw!? Was I imagining it?" he wondered aloud. There were plenty of targets around him, but it was a rule that you couldn't hit a target that was already holding a kunai or shuriken.

I smiled in the corner of my mouth and, a few steps before I passed him, I spotted a wooden target hanging from a tree branch to my left. Coincidentally or not, Masayuki looked at me at that moment and then at the target. He saw me pulling a shuriken out of my pants pocket and tried to shout:

"Hey, Aiden-bastard, that target is m–"

Without looking at either Masayuki or the target, I hit the shuriken and kept running. I zoomed by Masayuki, saying nothing as if he weren't important.

'There's only one left... Only one left...' I repeated to myself a little impatiently as I searched for the last target.

I could already hear the running water of the river where the second stage of the circuit was taking place, and I didn't want to stop for a second to catch up with Asuma and the others.

As I went deeper into the forest, I met more students along the way. With the rule of no repeated targets, the first stage of the circuit proved to be more of a tapering-off stage than target practice.

It was then that I finally found a target that was clean. This target was painted on the trunk of a tree just over three meters away from the main path. So, this time I used a kunai to be more accurate than I would have been if I had tried to use a shuriken. After throwing the kunai, I hit the target with no problems, which meant I could move on to the next test.

I ran about ten meters and reached the bank of the river mentioned in the previous explanation. As Hizashi-sensei explained, it was a shallow, calm river. Even so, the place was more crowded than a public swimming pool.

We were still at the Ninja Academy, so chakra control wasn't exactly the strong suit of most of these kids.

Many of the ninjas were crowding close to the riverbank still, and whenever one of them fell, a sensei was there in the middle of the river to tell them to get back to the bank and try again the right way.

"Arww! I can't do it!"

*Splash!*

"Tanaka, back to the riverside!" A sensei exclaimed to the boy who was already in midstream and had fallen in.

This was the stage that worried me the most. As Aiden hadn't bothered to become a shinobi for a long time because of family frustration, he had never focused on learning basic techniques like this. And I was a simple reincarnate, so I obviously hadn't trained in that either.

However, my hesitation was instantly shattered when a boy with black hair stumbled and fell right by the water's edge.

*PLOFT!*

Because of the noise, I looked over and saw that it was Might Guy who had fallen. He had a determined expression, even though many around him were laughing because he couldn't even stand still on the water.

I was surprised, because I used to think that Might Guy had always been as talented as Kakashi. Well, it seems I was wrong about that. Maybe that's why Guy saw himself in Rock Lee in the future.

"At least I'm not the worst here, huh?" someone next to me said.

I took a deep breath, took the first step, and said as I looked back: "In the future, that boy there may have the power to beat anyone in this village. If I were you, I'd start worrying more about crossing the river instead of judging who is trying."

Those children looked me up and down, but they couldn't say anything when they saw me standing in the water.

Standing like that was a little easier than it looked. All I had to do was remember that episode in the anime, in which Naruto and Sasuke fought over who could climb the highest in the trees. Therefore, I understood all I had to do was apply a small concentration of chakra to my feet. This chakra would prevent me from sinking.

I walked a few steps until I felt confident enough to run. It was a wide river, but calm. For this reason, I reached the other side without too much trouble after about thirty seconds.

On the other side of the river, there was a small wood that led me until the gorge finally appeared in front of me. The last stage of the circuit.

"HAHAHAHA! It's not as easy as it looks, is it?" said Daikoku outrageously. He was standing on an area of land in the middle of the gorge.

The large ravine that Daikoku had created was overgrown with bamboos that went as far as the light could reach. It reminded me a lot of the last stage of the circuit of the Sports Festival Arc in the anime My Hero Academia.

The place was much emptier than the previous stages. Also, the students on this stage couldn't proceed as quickly, as they had to be very careful not to fall into the gorge.

Looking ahead, I could find Kurenai still halfway down the gorge. I didn't see Asuma, so I assumed he had already finished.

'This is the part that gets tricky for me too... I could use my Levitation Cloak if it were a life-or-death situation, but I can't do this now.'

When I put one of my feet on one bamboo, I felt it shake under my weight. I quickly put another foot on the next one and got better balance.

The bad part of this challenge wasn't just the fear of falling, but also the pattern of the bamboos. They weren't perfectly aligned with each other, and not all them were as stable as others. It took luck, patience, and skill to get through this stage without falling. That was my problem. For good reason, I was in a hurry.

I realized that to help my mother I would need to see how her chakra channels were doing, so when I saw Hizashi I had the idea of maybe trying to use Byakugan to help me with that. If he could at least tell me how the chakra channels were and which points were most damaged, I could try to start some treatment or something.

Hizashi was the main teacher in another class, while Daikoku was in my class; We would only contact each other on rare occasions like this. I didn't want to wait for the next lucky chance.

In my haste to cross the gorge, whenever I felt an instability in a bamboo, I tried to move on to the next one instead of trying to balance myself. This worked for the first two bamboos, but soon I was moving from one bamboo to the next and staying 'upright' more by luck than skill.

Daikoku noticed I was the only one moving so fast and got worried.

"Arh! What was his name again? Alan? No, that sounds very foreign... Ah, yes, I remember. Hey, Aiden, try to slow down a bit or you'll fall, understand?"

"I'd like to do that, sensei. But I don't think there's any turning back now."

Before I knew it, I had already passed Kurenai. But the further I went, the closer I came to falling. At a certain point, my options for bamboos to stretch out my leg practically ran out, and in order not to fall, I had to use my hands to reach one.

Balancing with both hands on the top of a bamboo pole and with my legs up, I could see the darkness below.

'Thank God I chose the Superior Manual Skill talent!' I thought and started 'walking' with my hands. 'Oh, that's surprisingly easier than with my feet!'

Daikoku's jaw dropped. He had taught at the Ninja Academy for over twenty years. He had seen many talented students, including Kakashi, Minato and Shisui. Yet, he never expected a student to find such an ingenious and idiotic solution to this test's lack of balance.

"Ohh~! With his hands, he has greater control because of the way his hands grip the bamboos!" Daikoku said, impressed. "Well done, Aiden! Keep it up!"

'Easier said than done!'

Miraculously, when I reached the other side of the gorge, I almost fell face-first into the earth. It was my body, with its excellent dexterity, that acted almost on its own and stopped me. I took a deep breath, hardly believing that I had actually done it. Then I looked at the path ahead and thought:

'Now I just have to run to the finish line and try to talk to Hizashi.'*

*

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