Naruto: Ren the Sealmaster

Time passed and slowly, it was two weeks since Ren became Hinata's tutor. The girl was improving every day, especially at dodging and chakra control. Her chakra capacity was slowly increasing too.

If it went like this for two more weeks, Ren was thinking about introducing some elemental training for her. After all, the sooner she started with that, the better.

But today, he skipped the training session with Hinata. He also notified Hiashi that he would not be available to teach her for the next week and gave Hinata a scroll with instructions about what to do during his absence.

He was going on a mission.

As a member of the Barrier Corps, Ren technically did not need to do missions. Unlike what the fanfiction stories in his past life portrayed, Konoha higher-ups were not stupid enough to send their researchers and scholars to the front lines for no reason.

There were many 'ninjas' with the official rank of genin or chunin who were not exactly combatants. Oh, they knew the basics and were at least borderline competent for their rank but their fighting abilities were nothing to write home about.

For example, that girl from canon with swirly glasses who joined the cryptanalysis squad. Shiho or whatever was her name. She was part of Konoha's military because of her intelligence, not her fighting prowess. She was a ninja, but she was not a soldier. As a part of the military force, she had a rank but they wouldn't be sending her on missions because that's not her job.

Ren was in a similar position. The Barrier Corps were full of fuinjutsu users. Many of these people were weak. They were the scholarly type who loved spending their day scribbling with a brush, deep in their thoughts. Not doing push-ups or running around the village.

They were not combatants and they had different duties to the village. They were still ninja and had a rank, but missions were voluntary for them unless it was something like maintenance work on seals, which fell under their specialty.

As far as Ren knew, the same went for many other divisions in Konoha. Somebody like Ibiki, Inoichi, or Shikaku? They had to focus on running various parts of Konoha's military. They couldn't go dilly-dallying on a mission who knows where. They had responsibilities inside the village. Some of these men hadn't been on a mission outside the village for well over several years.

The reason why Ren wanted to go on a mission despite not needing to was simple. He wanted a vacation from the village.

As a ninja, he couldn't leave without permission. And good luck getting permission to leave for anything but a mission if you are an active ninja. 

Sometimes, Konoha felt like a prison to Ren. Big, spacious, full of people but a freaking prison nonetheless.

He was in a new world and he couldn't even travel freely. He really envied all these overpowered naive pathetic dense harem-protagonist retards from Japanese mangas. At least, they could go wherever they pleased.

Entering the Mission Office, as many ninjas called it, Ren saw two chunin manning the desk with missions.

Contrary to popular belief, the Hokage was not always present. He did not give missions to every ninja in the village. Ren did not know the exact number but there were over twenty thousand ninjas in Konoha. Hokage could never manage to give everyone their missions by himself. Not to mention, the man had a village to run. Paperwork to sign. He couldn't be sitting at the assignment desk all day.

Instead, Hokage usually only gave missions to the teams under jonin instructors. Because they were on a fast track Jonin course and there was a chance these kids would be the next generation of village's Jonins. So, knowing them was worth the time investment for the Hokage.

That's why all the jonins with genin teams took their missions during the same time of the day. Because that's when the Hokage was present at the Mission Assignment Desk.

Then, Hokage mostly dealt with emergency or high-level mission assignments. S-rank missions had to go through the Hokage office as did some A-ranks.

But scrubs like Ren? They got their missions from overworked, unimportant career chunin who were practically just over-glorified paper pushers for the village.

Honestly? Ren was not complaining. He preferred those people over having the personal attention of Hokage. He still sometimes woke up cursing Sarutobi for fucking up the canon. It was a habit for Ren by now.

"Bandit extermination?" The chunin dealing with Ren asked after they exchanged greetings and Ren informed him he would like to have a simple and easy C-rank mission.

"No." Ren said with a grimace.

He took a few of those in the past. He needed expendable test subjects for some of his fuinjutsu that were applied to the body. Obviously, he wasn't going to test them on himself. Duh.

But one thing those missions taught him was that this was not a story. It was a reality. And the reality was never black and white.

In fanfiction, it was simple. Bandits were bad guys and needed to be killed.

In reality? Sure, some of them were scum. But then there were those bandit groups that were nothing but starving orphan kids. They do not kill. They do not rape. They do not kidnap. They just rob money from travelers because they want to feed themselves and their families.

And then they are labeled as bandits and somebody hires ninjas to kill them. And so they die. Most likely in a very brutal and painful way. Then, their family either starves or their brothers become the next generation of bandits and their sisters the next generation of prostitutes.

It was how this world worked under all that 'we have punch wizards!' glitter of the anime.

Did anybody still wonder why Ren absolutely hated being a ninja?

Ren always wondered in his past life why bandits still existed in Narutoverse when ninjas always hunted them. But it was quite simple. There were billions of people in this world. This world might even have more people than his previous one.

But there are only around a hundred to two hundred thousand ninjas. That's counting all the major hidden villages alongside all the minor ones. And that number contained the researchers and paper pushers.

Even then, it was a drop in the bucket.

Some bandit groups can go a decade without anybody hiring ninjas to exterminate them. Many bandits manage to even retire from that lifestyle before someone hires a ninja to take care of their group.

Ren didn't feel like killing bandits today. If he encountered another bandit group made of kids, it would sour his mood for the next month. It wasn't as if he could let them go either. Once he took the mission, his job would be to kill them.

It was better to avoid it altogether.

"Preferably protection detail." Ren told the chunin, "I'd like the client to be some hot chick too." He jovially grinned at the bored man, making his lips twitch.

"Oh, and wouldn't you like me to pack you food and drinks too?" The chunin asked with an eye roll.

"Nope. I've got my own. Sorry, but I doubt you cook as well as the chefs at Yakiniku Q." Ren off-handedly said as he shrugged, giving the chunin a smirk.

"Cheeky brat." The chunin laughed and Ren's gloomy mood improved too thanks to it, "For that, I will find a protection detail for some old geezer for you."

"Meh. I'll still get the protection detail mission so whatever. I take that as a personal win." Ren gave him a double thumbs-up, mouthing, 'Youth!' to him which made even the other chunin in the room snicker.

The atmosphere in the room improved but it barely lasted a few seconds. ANBU suddenly appeared and looked around the room, finding only the three chunin, which made him let out a quiet curse under his nose.

It was around lunch so the mission office was pretty much empty.

The atmosphere became tense once more. ANBU only ever showed themselves when something serious was going on. So, this was nothing good.

"Lord Hokage needs you three for an emergency mission. Report to him immediately." He said in a bland, unidentifiable tone before disappearing, making the three chunin in the room look at each other.

"Well, there goes my peaceful mission." Ren sighed and his shoulders slumped, 'F-ing old bastard. Always screwing things over for me without even knowing I exist.'

Sarutobi Hiruzen was definitely not Ren's favorite person.