Pokemon

Aragaki Yasushi walked out of the tent and stretched. His bones crackled all over.

Three days had passed since the Battle of Kannabi Bridge.

After Minato had appeared and dealt with Mahiru, he had led their group to Mimura Hamaki's camp.

But the moment Aragaki Yasushi arrived, he was stunned.

Things were in a terrible state!

The Iwagakure jōnin Toshito had led a force in an attack, and Konoha's unit had suffered heavy losses. By the end, only four people remained, including Mimura Hamaki. It couldn't have been much worse.

There was no helping it. Team Aragaki Yasushi and Team Kakashi had to stay behind temporarily and help Mimura Hamaki shore up Konoha's defenses in the Land of Grass while they waited for reinforcements from Konoha.

As for Minato Namikaze, that guy was Konoha's ace firefighter. With the Flying Thunder God, he could go wherever he wanted, and he'd headed straight to the battlefield against Kumogakure by himself, leaving the rest of them behind to hold down the fort.

Fortunately, Aragaki Yasushi's teacher, the veteran jōnin Akimichi Doto, had stayed behind too. He and Mimura Hamaki were in charge of dealing with Iwagakure's remaining forces.

But ever since Iwagakure's army had been wiped out, the village had completely lost its nerve. It had not only gone quiet, but also holed up behind its own defensive lines, afraid to show its face. It had even begun to withdraw little by little.

Aragaki Yasushi had been enjoying a rather quiet few days, without running into any danger.

Every day, he just took on some small patrol task to earn a few points and scrape by, while developing his Paper Style on the side.

Asuma and Yuhi Kurenai had also seized this rare period of rest to train as hard as they could.

Akimichi Doto would occasionally come by to give them a few pointers.

However, his specialty was the Akimichi Clan's secret techniques.

His main strategy was to get fat and hit hard.

Eat, get fat; get fat, get strong.

So when Akimichi Doto coached Aragaki Yasushi and the others, he could only offer a few pointers on changes in the nature and form of their chakra.

Hoping he would teach them some powerful ninjutsu was simply asking too much.

Besides, Akimichi Doto had plenty of responsibilities of his own and was rushed off his feet every day. The fact that he could spare any time to teach them was already pretty good.

Team Kakashi was the same: everyone had gone into training mode.

But during this time, Kakashi would occasionally come to see Aragaki Yasushi, and the two of them would get together to discuss their experiences developing ninjutsu.

Kakashi was quite troubled by the Chidori's drawbacks.

Training in the Chidori without the Sharingan really was frustrating.

Then again, in the original story, didn't Kakashi develop Purple Electricity after losing the Sharingan?

He didn't even need Hand Seals. He could just use it on the spot, completely freeing himself from the restrictions traditional hand-seal-using ninja faced.

With Kakashi's talent, if he'd never had the Sharingan, it wasn't impossible that he could have developed Purple Electricity decades early.

One day, while Aragaki Yasushi was slacking off on patrol, a system notification suddenly appeared.

The pool had finally updated!

Aragaki Yasushi stared hard at the panel before him.

A notification appeared.

[Bind "Jackie Chan Adventures" as a Permanent Pool?]

Did it even need asking?

Of course he'd bind it!

Aragaki Yasushi confirmed without a second thought.

Forget the strength of the Jackie Chan Adventures pool. The Permanent Pool was empty right now, so even if this one was garbage, binding it couldn't hurt.

There was no reason not to. Something was better than nothing.

The next moment, the system panel updated.

Aragaki Yasushi hurriedly leaned in for a look.

[Limited Pool: Pokemon]

[Permanent Pool: Jackie Chan Adventures]

Pokemon?

Aragaki Yasushi scratched his head, baffled.

Wait, could the Limited Pool give him Pokemon themselves, or just their skills?

If he could pull Arceus, he'd be invincible on the spot. Why would he need to work so hard to save points for Talismans and train his Paper Style?

The more he thought about it, the more excited he got. He rubbed his hands together and opened the points panel, only to deflate immediately.

[Points: 600]

He'd spent the last few days slacking off on patrol and had only earned 350 points. He was still 300 points short of a ten-pull in the Limited Pool.

Aragaki Yasushi pursed his lips and made up his mind.

He'd just keep saving points for now. Once he had 900, he'd do a ten-pull.

Maybe he'd get a powerful Pokemon and reach the pinnacle of life!

Getting a Pokemon skill would be even better.

More than adding another Pokemon to his collection, Aragaki Yasushi wanted to strengthen himself.

He looked away and headed straight for a tent near the center of camp.

If he wanted to save points, he needed to find some work. He'd see if there were any high-difficulty missions that could earn him 300 points in one go.

With the Ox Talisman and Horse Talisman in his possession, Aragaki Yasushi's physical abilities and healing were already maxed out. He was unquestionably at jōnin level.

Even if he took on a mission with a high danger rating, he could handle it without a problem. There was no need to worry about things going wrong.

But when Aragaki Yasushi entered the tent and looked through the entire mission list, he was immediately crushed.

You've got to be kidding me.

Why were there so many fewer easy missions, like patrols and guard duty?

He'd wanted to rake in some points with a high-difficulty mission!

Aragaki Yasushi hurried over to the ninja in charge of handing out missions and asked, "Hey, why are there so few missions?"

The ninja shrugged, his tone flat. "You haven't heard? The fighting between us and Iwagakure has stopped. Our unit will probably be reassigned to another battlefield in a few days, so naturally there aren't many missions to hand out right now."

"Already?"

Aragaki Yasushi looked astonished. He stood there stunned for a while before the original story came back to him.

Oh, right. After the Battle of Kannabi Bridge, Konoha won and made a truce with Iwagakure.

After all, Konoha had been fighting on multiple fronts in the Third Shinobi World War. No matter how deep its reserves were, they couldn't withstand a prolonged war. A truce made sense.

But then he thought about it again and grew puzzled.

As far as he remembered, the Third Raikage hadn't yet fought ten thousand Iwagakure ninja alone for three days and three nights before dying of exhaustion.

Could it be that Iwagakure had made peace with Konoha and then turned around to attack Kumogakure?

Ugh, he couldn't really remember.

After living another life for over a decade, Aragaki Yasushi's memory of the original story had long since faded.

He only vaguely remembered some of the major events of the Ninja World War. The details of how the battles had shifted were long gone.

Besides, even the original story had been vague about those details, and it would sometimes pull things out of nowhere, contradicting itself from one moment to the next.

Rather than get caught up in the original story, he was better off going by what was happening now, so he wouldn't walk into a trap.

Aragaki Yasushi began thinking again.

He just didn't know which front he'd be sent to when they were reassigned in a few days.

Sunagakure?

Kumogakure?

Kirigakure?

No matter where he went, it looked like he was in for a rough time!

That was war.

A few more days passed.

That day, Akimichi Doto called Aragaki Yasushi into his tent.

Akimichi Doto smiled as he handed over a scroll and said warmly, "Yasushi, the transfer orders are here. Take a look."

Aragaki Yasushi swiftly took it, unrolled the orders, and scanned them.

His team was actually being sent to the Land of Whirlpools to help fight Kirigakure.