*Homura POV*
After that fiasco during the tryouts, most boys were too tired to continue with the exam, but some continued on anyway; at least from what I heard from the guys in my orphanage.
They were teasing me for not being able to complete the exam, at least for Zen and Toshi, I became their laughingstock for a whole week.
Making fun of me for saying that I was going to become a shinobi but wasn't able to finish the entire tryouts.
Also, they found out that I sabotaged them, by turning off the alarm clock.
I had to subdue an angry Toshi, Zen didn't care much since my plans failed.
Thankfully for me, Toshi is not exactly the vengeful type and is quite self-absorbed to bother thinking of other people than himself, after a while, he wasn't angry so I could sleep soundly at night.
However, not everyone was so simple-minded.
Uryuu just avoided me and didn't even look at me and when he did he seemed to want to beat me up...
Yeah, he can keep wishing... but that's never gonna happen.
Uchiha DNA, at least when it works; can't be underestimated.
I'd have to have a concussion to lose to him nowadays; I think he knows it too... he is a ticking time bomb that one.
Regardless, it doesn't matter too much that I wasn't able to finish boss said that the exam was mostly over by then anyway.
Boss can be kinda nice sometimes.
She meddled in my affairs, when I was by lonesome, and meditated about how I botched most of the exams.
You can count on her sometimes.
I didn't know that because no one wanted to tell me what happened after I passed out.
After I passed out, I woke up at the infirmary, together with a bunch of other kids, mostly the top runners.
Then one by one, they left together with their families.
I still remember Itachi looking at me when he came to pick up Sasuke... It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me. I pretended to be asleep but I don't think he bought it, he is a trained ninja after all.
A former child prodigy.
A jonin no less.
He probably could tell that I wasn't sleeping by my heartbeat, or the synapses in my brain firing electrical charges or something like that.
Thankfully he left without too much of a fuss after he came to pick up Sasuke.
Naruto was fully asleep when all that happened.
Like he had no worries at all.
In fact, from his face alone, I could tell he was having a nice dream.
I swear that guy is the biggest problem in my entire life.
But I am cooking up something, to get my revenge.
His days are numbered.
Anyway, as the kids who were at the infirmary got picked up by their parents, there were only guys like me and Naruto left.
Even they left after some time had passed.
Although in my case I got visited by some of the guys from my orphanage, it was mainly to make fun of me.
However, I didn't leave with them.
After all, I waited for Naruto to wake up in order to set plans for my revenge, but by the time he woke up, it was almost nighttime.
He definitely had pushed himself past his limits, I wonder if he trains by himself when I am not around him or not.
Regardless, after he woke up, took him a few moments to realize where he was or what had happened but as soon as he did he started celebrating that he had won the race.
...it wasn't a race, but I simply indulged him in his own stupidity.
Let him drop his guard.
For the sake of my revenge.
Such an easy to manipulate brat.
But, it was truly hard to pretend to smile while the guy bolstered about his victory all the way until we parted ways. It was the second worse thing I experienced that day.
At least, that was what I thought at the time, however, after I parted ways with Naruto and went home, I had another slew of problems awaiting me.
Mainly with a certain nosy sister.
Just another amazing day in my amazing life.
...it was overall the worst week of my life.
Chapter end
Well, I have some criticism for this fic.
There's too much infodump without current info about what the heck homura/character is doing right now. Especially when he's lost in thought.
Even when he's lost in thought, I would like to know what he's feelimg right now, what he's seeing, what he's touching, and what actions he's doing right now. Also, how long he's been lost in thought while doing certain action/while doing nothing and dazing into the sky.
For example :
Even when I lost in thought, I still recognize my surroundings and what action I'm doing. I can also feel the heat of sun or crowded bus with suffocating air filled with gases and smokes due to broken air conditioning. Not to mention the road noises and the shakiness of the road.
After I got to the bus stop, I got lost in thought again. After walking for ~100 meters (f*CK imperial unit), I got into the nearest parking spot and getting into my bike. I can't afford to lost I thought while riding a bike, but i did anyway and lucky, like
When I'm lost in thought in my room, I can feel my realitvely loud fan spinning near me, while looking at the ceiling and Dazzled by the fluorescent lamp and got annoyed of the lamp.
To remove my annoyances, I choose to get up, open the window and seeing the dark sky without stars due to light pollution but fresher air, before continuing my thought again.
While in the middle of thoughts, I scratch my itchy ear and neck. I think I Didn't wash it enough when bathing this afternoon.
After that thought, I close the window, walk to the corner of the room to turn of the lamp, get to bed and trying put my blanket only to realize my blanket is being washed today. Now I'm annoyed again, but I can only bear with sleeping without blanket and then trying to sleep while thinking about stuff like these and th..... Z z z z z
------------ (the end) (MC died = story over)------------
Sure, there's a lot in the mind, but you may as well try to explain what he's doing so that the reader won't be lost in his thoughts while forgetting what he's trying to do.
It's just some extra words of reminder for telling the reader that tells what the character is currently doing while we also saw his thoughts. No need an entire paragraph, just some Sentence that contain current time/action/location for the reader.
That's all.
Btw,
The "I Like War" speech is definitely golden. I really can't stop laughing for such simple yet touching speech.
What a direct speech for encouraging war insrad of those patriotic hypocrites that want freedom for their country but not for their Colony or servants.
I really loce to see how those lowly war mongering ninjas react to actual war mongering speeches.
Especially when Will of fire is ironically can be perceived as war motivation. Poor those proctors tho, those speeches were beyond their pay grade.
Thx. But he is not lost in thought, he is simply reminiscing about recent events that happened in his life. When you are lost in thought it is more akin to daydreaming or being in a trance-like state. Reminiscing in literature is more akin to having access to or hearing the inner thoughts of a character in a given situation, in other words, it is called an expositional monologue(Though in this case it is both an internal and expositional monologue). The same things that people usually do in a 1st person's point of view epilogue. People can add a location or mention that their character is still in the same place and vice versa. However, in my case it isn't necessary since the character's life hasn't changed in the week he had to wait to get an official answer from the academy. If it was an epilogue and things had changed a great deal, it could have been mentioned but I chose to omit it. Nobody in their right mind narrates about real-life events that occurred to them. If it helps think about someone having dinner and ranting about something that occurred during their day: 'Barry got the case again... but what did I expect his wife is the boss's damned daughter! But worse is that Steve is getting next week's case too. They're looking down on me...but I will show them by buttering up to Bruce. His father is the CEO after all. I might get lucky.' Since it was from the MC's point of view there's no need for a location. It's happening in his mind, he is omniscient, he's everywhere.
And for the infodumps... well, the Mc is weak. He spends most of his time training and thinking of new ways to train, he isn't (yet) jin woo from solo leveling. But he gets really strong if you're up for that, in the latter arcs in shippuden. Just hope I get there.
@NNFB why should infodump if the MC is weak ? It has no correlation. Sure the MC might need to scheme things if he's weak, but the infodump didn't really talk about his schemes.
I didn't really have problem with weak MC. Even if he's a loser or weak ass character, if it's written properly and logically, it's still good. Bad MC isn't a problem if the story narrative is good.
Being able to sneak into Uchiha Clan, masking hair color, acquiring Uchiha robe, and getting in fight with Uchiha children without his identity getting caught is proof of intelegent power potential.
Especially in a village where Most people only got education of elementary school level and forced to work afterwards. Modern Earth standard of "average" or "little above average" can compare to small clan prodigy or intelligent member.
And also MC inability to fully understand Shisui's note is a very good way of showing MC's lack of intelegence compared to actual genius like Sasuke.
Because MC intelligence is barely above average (a.k.a mediocre), but he got profound knowledge From earth. And when he got notes made by Earth standard "Genius" like Itachi and Shisui, of course MC can't really follow.
While Sasuke is a prodigy, but nobody give him necessary knowledge. Once he got those material, he can learn fast.
Good job. Most people simply think they can make the MC read jutsu easily, because they think there's no smart person and hard to understand writing in Shinobi world.
So, I have no problem with how weak MC is. There's another Naruto fic called "Fateful Uchiha" where the MC is just another Shinobi that can barely equal Itachi that being tired out due to training and mangekyo Sharingan.
That's why I didn't have problem when the title says "MC still in academy after chapter 100", because I would prefer better schoolmates interaction and at interesting activities at Shinobi academy, compared to just finishing Shinobi academy like it's nothing and power up like it's walking.
We got to many power up stories. Time for reality check at the academy. Daily life problem like fixing leaking roof, enduring faulty pen, cleaning smelly toilet, sending large package to the wrong receiver, little scuffle when learning jutsu and punished together, teacher and Principal awkward relationship, etc. Would be better. Especially if you can write situations at academy that many naruto didn't write about.
By copying actual school life stories and re-imagining it in Shinobi academy, it sound better than power up against Madara at some random valley.
Tftc