Monday morning, in the small patch of woods behind the house.
Hanekawa called Kurenai out to train together; she practiced her Genjutsu while he grinded his projectile accuracy.
But what gave him a major headache was figuring out what to pick for his remaining three types of weapon tools.
There were plenty of ninja tools out there, but the most universally used and structurally simplest were kunai, shuriken, senbon, and Fūma shuriken.
Beyond those, the mechanical difficulty scaled massively—encompassing items like katanas, short swords, giant broadswords, bo staffs, and nunchucks.
Paper bombs were technically classified as ninja tools too, and using them was blissfully simple, but they were just aggressively expensive.
He literally couldn’t afford them.
Mulling over his options, Hanekawa naturally shifted his focus toward how to generate some capital.
For a mere child in the shinobi world, the viable vectors for earning money were severely limited.
After a brief moment of deliberation, a sudden blueprint struck him: Dobashi at the Konoha Archives Bookstore.
In the original series, Jiraiya had once flaunted his bank account to Naruto.
While he might not have been the absolute wealthiest man alive, he was undeniably rolling in deep capital.
And his fortunes stemmed single-handedly from his wildly successful, best-selling Make-Out Paradise series.
Hanekawa had thoroughly absorbed a massive library of classic internet literature in his past life.
He even had a flawless pen name ready to deploy: Raikaiken (Thunder Fire Sword).
But he didn’t necessarily have to manually write every single syllable himself.
He ultimately resolved that his fifth and sixth weapon tool selections would be paper bombs and a standard katana or longsword.
In this world’s culture, swords and blades shared the same fundamental lineage.
Choosing a sword was a strategic move aimed at eventually securing the Konoha-Style Kenjutsu.
In the Leaf village, the absolute vast majority of swordsmanship styles were guarded clan secrets passed down along lineages—making it structurally impossible for an outsider to learn them, such as the Hatake Kenjutsu.
But there were open exceptions like the foundational Konoha-Style Kenjutsu, famously utilized in the future by Kosuke Maruboshi, Hayate Gekko, and Yugao Uzuki.
As for his seventh and final ninja tool, Hanekawa had locked down his target long ago: the scalpel.
It was a perfect, seamless synergy since he would automatically be handling them while unlocking his medical ninja traits.
“I’m heading out for a jog, Kurenai,” Hanekawa called out, a fresh strategy forming in his mind.
He was broke, so why not simply demand a line of credit from Dobashi?
As an active sleeper agent for Kumogakure, he logically required operational funding.
Asking for basic expenses was entirely within standard procedure, wasn’t it?
Hanekawa completed two running circuits along the streets before pushing open the door to the Konoha Archives Bookstore.
“Agent 9527.
I am highly gratified to see your cover hasn’t blown yet.” Dobashi greeted him with the exact same solemn blessing as last time.
“…” Hanekawa’s lips twitched subtly.
Please spare me the dramatic death-flag blessings, handler-uncle.
You sound like an old general on a theater stage, completely stacking flags behind my back.
“Hanekawa, did you uncover a vital piece of intelligence for the homeland?” Dobashi asked, his face melting into a look of intense anticipation.
Hanekawa paused.
When it came to structural secrets of the Leaf, he actually possessed an immense treasury of data derived entirely from his past-life knowledge of the plot.
But right now, he chose to play it flat.
“No,” Hanekawa extended an open palm, cutting straight to the chase.
“I require operational funding.” “Operational funding?” Dobashi blinked, slightly stunned before catching on.
Ah, the kid is just asking for cash, he just framed it beautifully.
“You are indeed at an age where you lack an independent economic pipeline,” Dobashi said, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
“Moving forward, I shall allocate you five thousand ryo per month.” Five thousand ryo was an absolute astronomical fortune for a young child.
Mission payouts in the shinobi world were structurally divided into five tiers, where a standard D-Rank task started at a baseline baseline of five thousand ryo.
But D-Rank earnings were split across a four-man squad, meaning an ordinary Genin walked away with barely a thousand ryo after taxes.
“Thank you, Dobashi-ojisan,” Hanekawa said, thoroughly satisfied with white-picking five thousand ryo out of thin air.
“Securing funding means you must deliver results,” Dobashi’s tone suddenly shifted, his face hardening into a stern expression.
“The hidden echelons of Kumogakure have handed down a concrete long-term directive for you.” “Mission guaranteed to be executed with absolute fidelity!” Hanekawa said, matching his gravity.
“Flaunt your innate talents at the Academy without reservation.
When graduation arrives, position yourself to be personally apprenticed under a member of Konoha’s highest leadership matrix,” Dobashi said, clapping a firm, heavy hand onto the boy’s shoulder.
“Currently, you represent Kumogakure’s sole viable asset capable of infiltrating the strategic inner circle of the enemy village.” “Understood!” Hanekawa nodded heavily.
Perfect, he thought.
The moment I successfully secure Tsunade as my mentor, this directive automatically checks itself off.
“If you pull off this infiltration, you will be officially designated as a registered disciple of the Raikage-sama himself, unlocking the structural privilege to inherit our legendary Nintaijutsu,” Dobashi smiled, softening his posture.
I get it.
Classic corporate baiting.
Hanekawa internally chuckled.
But it was a high-value piece of bait, so he was entirely willing to swallow it.
“Dobashi-ojisan,” Hanekawa scratched his head, assuming a casual demeanor.
“It’s like this…
I happen to have a friend.
If he wanted to publish a piece of literature, could he run the print run through your establishment?” “Of course,” Dobashi pondered for a moment before offering, “Since he is a connection of yours, I can structurally allocate him an extra 20% margin on the net returns.” “20%?” Hanekawa asked, playing innocent.
“What is the standard distribution model then?” “The traditional split is a 70-30 model,” Dobashi explained.
“The storefront claims 70%, while the author retains 30%.” Only 30%?
Talk about kneeling down just to beg for scraps.
But fortunately, since he—er, his friend—was pulling an undercover connection, his net margins would scale to a comfortable 50%.
“What if my friend simply provides the core conceptual blueprints, character templates, and a detailed narrative outline?
How would the split look then?” Hanekawa asked after a brief calculation.
A co-writing partnership was a vastly superior operational model.
While he remembered the grand trajectories of countless literary classics, manually drafting every single paragraph would be a massive drain on his limited training hours.
“An intellectual property partnership?
That is a novel operational structure,” Dobashi murmured, his brow furrowing as he fell into a long, silent calculation.
Under normal commercial guidelines, he would have shot the idea down instantly.
But Hanekawa wasn’t an ordinary civilian child; he was a deep-cover Kumogakure asset boasting an unprecedented growth trajectory.
He was someone highly worth investing in and tying down.
“If the market reception hits a baseline slump, we split it at 10%.
If the publication charts a massive breakout success, your friend secures a clean 40% margin,” Dobashi finally stated.
Hanekawa’s eyes brightened significantly.
40% on a blockbuster hit?
Yeah, we can absolutely run with that.
“Excellent.
I shall deliver my friend’s conceptual outline and structural blueprints during my next visit,” Hanekawa said.
Before exiting the storefront, he took a casual stroll through the adult literature section.
He discovered that the current local publications were remarkably vanilla compared to the hyper-stimulating standards of modern Earth—relying mostly on basic, suggestive double-entendres.
But thinking about it logically, it made perfect sense; in the future, Jiraiya’s Make-Out Paradise would literally be adapted into mainstream cinematic releases across the continent.
Leaving the Archives, Hanekawa bypassed the school route for the time being, pulling up instead before the counter of a local ninja tool supplier.
He inquired with the shopkeeper regarding the unit pricing of paper bombs.
A paper bomb was essentially a specialized talisman inscribed with a containment matrix that sealed a high-tier Fire Style ninjutsu, engineered to detonate upon a chakra trigger or timer.
Their raw explosive output was devastating, but their market valuation was aggressively steep.
In the original timeline, the moment Shikamaru Nara broke into the Chunin rank, his liquid assets could barely cover the acquisition of two individual slips.
However, Hanekawa discovered that the talisman inventory was split into distinct tactical grades.
The premium, high-tier variations commanded a staggering valuation of over ten thousand ryo each, engineered to pack the raw explosive payload of a Jonin-level Fire Style technique.
He estimated that Shikamaru had bought that specific premium grade.
By contrast, the lowest, entry-level talismans were priced at a modest three hundred ryo per slip—packing just enough punch to go blast some river fish.
Since his primary objective was simply to trigger the system’s tracking matrix to unlock a new trait, and given his heavily limited liquid funds, Hanekawa opted to buy fifteen of the cheap paper bombs.
Even so, his freshly pocketed five thousand ryo instantly evaporated, leaving him with a measly five百 ryo in change.
Hanekawa headed back home, met up with Kurenai, and walked alongside her to the Academy for the afternoon sessions.
As for the talismans burning a hole in his pouch, he resolved to locate a desolate, abandoned clearing after hours to safely detonate them.
“Kakashi!
During this afternoon’s physical conditioning circuit, this great elite lord is definitely gonna leave you eating my dust!” Obito’s high-octane, hot-blooded declaration echoed through the classroom the moment they stepped past the threshold.
“You won’t even clear the top ten,” Kakashi thrown a flat glance over his shoulder.
“This time is completely different!” Obito roared, crossing his arms defiantly.
“The man who carries the weight of the future Hokage’s name will absolutely never suffer a consecutive defeat!” The Academy’s standard curriculum was split into theoretical lectures and practical field training.
Field training wasn’t limited to standard 1v1 combat spars; it encompassed elemental jutsu theory, target throwing mastery, and grueling physical conditioning circuits.
“Ugh…
a high-velocity conditioning circuit?
Kill me now,” Kurenai muttered, puffing out her cheeks in profound misery the moment she heard the announcement.
Hanekawa could entirely empathize with her.
The physical fitness benchmarks demanded by instructors in the shinobi world were vastly more sadistic than any university physical education test back on Earth.
During their previous endurance evaluation, Hanekawa had finished right alongside Obito—both of them failing to even clip the margins of the top ten leaderboard.