Chapter 114: Second year exam (1)

In the middle of the woods, one of the many forest areas within Konogakure; stood one tall man in front of 3 rows composed of children.

Those children were none other than the children belonging to Homura's class.

Today they had a field exercise, that necessitated them to go outside the academy in order to perform.

It was normal for them to do so, they had been through several of those already, among many other things.

So no one was really surprised or feared what they may face this time around, but most thought it to be rather bothersome since the last test had them survive in the woods for two weeks.

With very few supplies.

But it is still far better than many of the things they had to go through at the academy.

Training to become a ninja was not easy and takes a lot of students.

This time around they had backpacks with the basic needs inside for a whole day of exploring, meaning whatever was waiting ahead in the later portions of the day, would not take more than one day.

Which was a relief to most.

Nonetheless, it would still be a challenge as the man in front of them kept mentioning that they should be careful and work as a team to go through the several challenges ahead of them.

Although, the man ahead of the group of academy students seemed to be the adult responsible for giving instructions and was overall in charge; he was not the only adult present.

Behind him stood 5 other adults, seemingly about the same age as the man; if not slightly older or younger.

Most of them wore the same type of uniform composed of the Konoha shinobi attire, while one of them was wearing more or less casual clothing; except for the distinct long lab coat.

She was one of the several nurses at the academy, Ikeda Matsumori.

She was someone that most students knew, since not getting injured in the course of ninja training was almost an impossibility.

If she was present, this meant that the ordeal that they would have to go through would not be an easy one or one without danger some potential danger ahead.

Which reiterated the words of the man giving the instructions.

The tall man carrying a notepad was giving instructions to a class full of students, and had a rather neutral look on his face as he was talking to the assembled students; he didn't seem too worried or confident about the things he was telling his student about but more like he was simply going through a routine.

Or simply giving a speech he had told many times prior.

With his monotone voice and his indifferent appearance that was what he knowingly or unknowingly conveyed in the minds of most children present.

He was a man wearing thinned framed glasses, wearing a leaf headband on his forehead, coupled with Konoha's regular shinobi attire.

The green vest and the usual dark-colored pants and long-sleeved shirt.

He was this year's main teacher for Homura's class.

Munekata Dai, a man as boring as he was uninteresting.

He seemed to be quite serious, at least that was to most of his

Not much was known to Homura about the man.

Naruto had been mischievous in class on a few occasions, however, it was not clear to Homura why this was happening so he chose not to inquire further. Even though he had helped Naruto several times in pulling some of those pranks himself.

Keeping Naruto happy was all that mattered to Homura at this point, and if that helped him with his cover of being a prankster and overall not entirely serious personality.

Then who would be bothered by it?

Anything to pass the time and increase the bond between himself and Naruto which had been slightly degraded the previous year; then it was worth the trouble.

Homura also being a child and quite mischievous from birth, a part of him did sometimes find it amusing, even if he wanted to firmly deny it.

At least it made him forget and enjoy the moment, even if it was just for a short time.

-This time around we will be making teams of 3 and drawing a lottery on which team you will be a part of for the next section of this outing. Those with the same numbers will be paired together. (Dai)

Most students seemed disappointed that they could not work with their preferred partners, though a select few were disappointed for a different reason.

-(Great… 2 deadweights to carry this time around…let's hope at least one of them is competent enough to not drag me down.)

Homura did not want to partner up with other students.

Homura wanted to leave the academy as soon as possible, but he was barely able to make a clone without messing it up, and took quite a lot of chakra for him to do as much.

Even though, he is not the greatest at every topic in class, when it came to studies or in terms of physical abilities; he was far above the norm.

Other students couldn't really hold a candle to the boy that was forced into hellish training inside his mind and had to sometimes handle different training regiments proposed to him by Might Guy.

So, for him who needed to win above all else or at the very least be among the top at all times, it was not the best to be part of a team that could drag him down.

- Homura! (Dai)

Before Homura had a chance to wait too long to have his answer, the teacher called out his name.

- (My turn, huh… ) Yes! - Homura thought to himself.

Several names had already been called out to draw from the lottery that was currently going on, but Homura did not expect to have his name called so soon.

Nonetheless, he took a piece of paper and unwrapped it, in order to reveal his assigned number.

- 3…*sigh*

Homura, instead of going to look for his partners, decided to lean against a tree nearby and waited for everyone to find theirs first instead.

He decided that it would be the fastest way rather than asking around, besides he had a lot to think about.

He was in a constant pensive mood.

He had much to think about the future.

A year had passed but there was no major progress in his life or training.

He had contemplated leaving the academy, however, such a thing entailed a load of different problems.

Although by doing so, he would have far more time to train and plan ahead.

That also meant going back to the orphanage.

Even if by several years went by or everything he tried to do get stronger work and he managed to achieve great results,  and  him managing  to apply to become a shinobi in the future without  or having access to the records available at the academy. It  ultimately would be far more difficult; even if he wanted to integrate as a shinobi in the future.

Furthermore, there was still so much to learn.

Many jutsu have not been taught to him yet.

The academy teaches students many types of jutsus in specific fields but students are not meant to learn it all.

For example, girls are taught to take flower arranging classes and many other different classes from the usual classes most boys would take.

It simply could not be avoided since Kunoichis have certain expectations to be able to fulfill, different from their male counterparts.

However, things were not as segregated as one might believe, besides the normal classes that all shinobi should take, students were not forced to follow the curriculum to the letter. With so many students from different clans and different abilities, nothing was truly that set in stone.

Students could even be placed in a different class or grade, and new students that had a high combat ability and were quite older than the usual 5 or 6 years old freshmen, could be assigned to higher grades.

Even first-year genins could be sent back to the academy for training once again if they were deemed incompetent or had some other thing wrong with them.

Thus, the same was true for other classes at the academy. They were as flexible as one wanted to be provided one took all their mandatory classes.

Such was the case for many classes and topics, including genjutsu or even sealing techniques. Although everyone has to attend those classes, most children are not expected to master them all.

Since they are quite hard by normal standards and quite complicated to understand or have the ability to use them.

It would be useless to spend years teaching someone who has almost no talent for them.

Not everyone is good at performing genjutsu or even using sealing techniques.

Much less talent for yin or yang releases.

The same was also true for nature releases.

So, students are not meant to continue to take those classes after they've achieved what was mandated of them.

At this point in time, it was mostly theory and having basic knowledge about topics.

But when it came to learning some basic ninjutsus that was something they learned every year.

Some of the things they had to learn for years on end, such as the transformation jutsu or even the clone jutsu.

Students were taught those jutsus since year one, and they were still learning how to properly use them this year as well; since it can take years to properly master it for children.

Until it becomes almost second nature.

Furthermore, the fact that most children had poor chakra control was a great way to subtly train them how to use their chakra without any reservation.

This is why people like Itachi or Kakashi graduated early. Geniuses like them who can perform everything taught to them in no time can graduate early as long as they prove they have mastery of all that is required of them to know.

It shows how in tune they are with their innate abilities and strengths, people who are able to tap into that pool easier are called geniuses or referred to as talented, but not everyone can.

Chakra is composed of two very distinct energies that need to come together in order to perform as it is intended. That is a reason why even though some like Homura, who have a larger chakra pool than most people his age but have issues controlling it can often struggle to handle that much chakra and end up wasting it or using more than what is needed of them.

Causing techniques to not work as intended or not all.

Though, Homura's anatomy being quite different than the average person also causes difficulties for him in that area, especially since his cells, from which he draws his physical energies have been altered.

However, academy students need to get use to using chakra, so that they can grow as intended as according too the planned curriculum.

Since although everyone has chakra inside them, to truly become a shinobi one must have a chakra pool superior to that of normal people, and the ability to refine their chakra through years upon years of training.

At least, that is the case for most people, though some have hardly that issue plaguing them, so it is not uncommon that people that train later in life to be able to use chakra as well as most shinobis. Though each individual is different and one can never truly say if they were that much hindered by that fact.

Sadly, for Homura, he was not a master when it came to using chakra and much less for the case of ninjutsu, like most children getting used to performing a technique, there would always be something slightly wrong when he performed them, or they lasted a brief instant, or worse they didn't work at all.

Thus, graduating early was not an option.

Especially since he could not leave the academy without Naruto or having a decent teacher as his future sensei.

With his shabby skills, he wouldn't be able to graduate anyway. Even if he truly wanted to leave the academy in order to get more free time.

Not only that but his chakra control was often weird, sometimes he could perform a jutsu but the next day he would be able to do it or perform much worse.

According to C, him always creating new changes to his body composition and anatomy on both the cellular level and overall body structure.

It had been a year since Homura had graphed a part of the elderly man's skin, which he found dead during the night of the Uchiha massacre within himself.

The same as Madara had done with Hashirama cells.

He did this in order to get stronger, and it was a much better form of using his peculiar physiology.

Since his usual method of using blood took too long and made him feel sick and weak, sometimes for months on end as had happened in the past.

That was because Homura's biology was quite unique; even more than Shin Uchiha's.

He had the ability to rewrite to some extent his DNA by introducing a foreign genetic material within his body.

Homura's body, or more appropriately the cells within that body were abnormal in the way they interacted with cells from others, they seem to easily bond with the cells of others and are forever changed.

Allowing to forever change his own genetic markers, and that change becoming a part of his own constitution.

This unique genetic makeup allows for tissue and organ transplantation with absolutely no chance of rejection,

However, although the advantages are numerous in a world where genetics can wildly impact a person's genetic makeup; even Homura's constitution is not perfect. Far from it.

There's a reason as to why Homura only ever took or tried to salvage the DNA of the Uchiha clan members; especially the children.

Being so genetically similar to his own, the drawbacks are much less apparent to his constitution.

Just as how Danzo lost control of Shin's arm gifted to him by Orochimaru; due to having exhausted all the sharingan that had been placed to counter the immense power held within Hashirama's cells.

Though Homura can forgo compatibility issues if his body is not strong enough to handle the stress put on himself by the power of the DNA he injected within himself with, he can not overall handle the powers that come with it or use them.

Thankfully, most people are not Hashirama or have DNA so unique that Homura is overall unable to process, but it sadly does take years.

Many years.

It is why Homura goes through a process called optimization.

Basically, it allows Homura easier process of foreign elements within his body more efficiently, similar to how the body absorbs nutrients and vitamins from food and adds them into the bloodstream by breaking them down into parts small enough for your body to absorb and use for energy, growth, and cell repair.

Only a thousand times worse, due to the entire process being unnatural and the forced stress it put on his body.

Normally, transplanted organs don't transfer their DNA to the host any more than the host makes genetic changes to the implanted organs; however Homura's uniqueness grants him the opposite, to some degree, His body makes changes to adapt to the newly received organ.

This reason was the reason why Homura started to try stealing other's DNA materials, this ability is what granted every clone of Shin Uchiha a pair of sharingan even though he was not an Uchiha by birth, thus he should never have been technically able to pass it on to a replica of himself.

Since organ transfusion does not change one's original cellular makeup; but his unique body does it no less and even the chakra is passed on to some degree, since the sharingan is ultimately just a very kind of particular form of chakra that flows from the owner's brain to their eyes. Causing them to turn crimson and obtain special power, so when a non-Uchiha uses a sharingan that is not their own since they lack that supply of special chakra they are drained of their chakra reserves to make up for the difference and are unable to cut its power.

So Homura not only infuses himself to try to gain others' abilities but also because he wishes for a larger chakra pool, but it doesn't seem to be working as well as he intended.

The combination of those two effects, takes a large toll on Homura's chakra and body, for a very long time until he's able to use his chakra as effectively as he wants.

C does not have the power to restructure Homura's DNA or control his body on a molecular structure but through the combination of those 2 processes, Homura is able to change to restructure his cells to a much higher rate and more efficiently, than simply having the cells of a person he injected himself with inside his body.

With this series of processes, his own cells are changed to take similar alterations to the original as much as possible and the amount keeps increasing as the cells are inevitably divided to create new cells.

It is a much better alternative than simply injecting someone else's cells, since normally the injection of normal cells into one's body results in the foreign cells dying or committing apoptosis.

In other words, causing a series of poor effects on the body altogether.

But by Homura graphing the skin of the deceased old man into his own body, Homura was able to keep most cells within the patch of skin from dying and now has a steady supply of new cells being created inside his body at all times that are being used for constantly repairing his cells.

If he had taken an organ and transplanted it inside his body, according to C, the entire process would have been much faster than the current estimate of another year of his body finally reaching a more stable phase.

However, when compared to Madara who waited years, if not decades in order to gain mokuton (wood style) from having Hashirama's cells inside his body.

Waiting another year just to get it more or less stabilized was bearable, however, Homura was still unsure if he would be able to gain the abilities of others.

Much less kekkei genkai.

Sadly, he would not know if the man's cells would affect the cells in his body to a great degree. Would it be of great importance or not? They belonged to the same clan; their DNA was too similar. The same with Sasuke and he would not gain another pair of Sharingans so there wasn't much he was willing to bet on; perhaps a greater amount of chakra reserves since the elderly man was a fully grown adult but even that was dubious at best.

The chakra reserves of a person, only increase by several times within their life, and that was normally through immense amounts of work; it was better to increase the quality of one's chakra or master the jutsus one would normally use since it would lead to a better level of chakra control and thus allow for less chakra being wasted.

But Homura felt himself getting more energy after getting Sasuke's cells inside his body, to a much greater degree than Shisui's so Homura isn't entirely sure where the truth lies.

However, there is no doubt that one's cells are the key to most of this mystery; otherwise, the Otsutsuki clan would not invade planets to rob them of their genetic material and chakra through the creation of chakra fruits.

The cells of a person, do confer a part of their chakra and with those, their abilities or predispositions.

That's how kekkei genkais are passed down from parent to child, but blood dilution has a way to dilute the abilities being passed over to the next generation or mutate them into something else entirely.

Homura has no idea if just having the cells of the people he intends to steal the abilities from will be enough, for him to have access to their unique chakra and DNA-related abilities.

Since chakra is both a mixture of physical and mental energies but having the physical portion of chakra is usually enough to pass down one's more unique abilities or predispositions.

But not having the same mental fortitude or mental energy could have a great effect on the abilities he intends to steal.

So he decided, that it was no longer enough, to take the DNA from the people he intended to obtain the abilities from, he needed to get a hold of body parts as well.

In order to have a steady supply of their DNA within himself, or at the very least skin samples so that he can graph within his body for better results.

He had seen that the Akatsuki member known as Kakuzu was able to use different chakra natures by using a forbidden jutsu that allowed him to use the heart of dead shinobi to grant him immortality and a higher affinity in all chakra natures.

This meant to Homura that a person's chakra nature to some degree lies within their cells, this meant that if he were to use other's people body parts would grant him access to better chances of obtaining the kekkei genkai connected to the 5 elements.

However, it could also be a side effect of Kakuzu's immortality-forbidden ninjutsu, or it was easier to access those abilities due to the deceased chakra nature; because it had something to do with the owner's heart.

Fortunately for Homura, he had the body and the determination to see it through whichever of those theories were true.

If he wanted to get to the top he had no other choice but to forgo most normal forms of training, but go one step beyond and try to explore outside-of-the-box possibilities.

- Number 3! Is there another student with a number 3 paper? (???)

Hearing someone mention the number he held written on the piece of paper inside his left hand was enough to get Homura to snap out of his endless tirade of schemes inside his head.

Which made him realize that he had spent so much time overthinking things that most children had already regrouped with their partners.

So he looked at whose voice was calling out to him and to his shock it was the girl that Naruto seemed to have fallen madly in love with for some reason; even though she clearly hated his guts.

The person in question was none other than Haruno Sakura.

Next to her was another weirdo, that Homura even after knowing him for over a year was unable to understand him.

It was one of the Gekkou clan's younger clansmen.

It had been over a year and a half and Homura still never bothered to ask for the name of the boy.

- (So my partners this time around are none other than Gekkou and Haruno?…*Sigh* at least I won't be forced to handle Naruto or Kiba.)

As Homura stopped leaning against a tree nearby and headed towards his teammates this time around, he saw a clear frown on Sakura's face and a barely noticeable look of curiosity being reflected on Gekkou's face for a brief instant.

Making Homura think that this may not be as easy as he thought it would be.

Gekkou didn't outright hate him or they had a strained relationship but as for Haruno Sakura…

-(Great…she hates me too.)

Chapter end