"No one's volunteering?"
"Don't be so shy—let the teacher go first."
The man at the front chuckled and struck a confident pose.
"My name is Ogawa Masaru. I like wine, I hate war, and my dream is to become an excellent teacher."
He clapped his hands. "Now, who's next?"
Encouraged by Ogawa's light-hearted tone, a few students began to introduce themselves one by one. The atmosphere slowly began to feel like a normal class.
Meanwhile, out in the hallway, Maki stood silently, seemingly dazed. But her mind was elsewhere—she was seeing through the eyes of a bug.
Through a link, she was controlling her parasitic insects far away in Konoha Forest. Her focus was on locating rare or unusual species, viewing everything through her insects' multifaceted eyes.
It was like she was the swarm.
Where most of her clan needed hand signs or techniques to command their insects, Maki simply willed them. The swarm responded to her thoughts instinctively, like extensions of her own limbs. She wasn't just a controller—she was the hive's mind.
Her attention flicked back to the classroom when another student introduced herself.
"I'm Tsunade. I like gambling, I hate losing money, and my dream is to win big."
A pretty girl with pale blond hair tied in a high ponytail stood proudly at her desk.
Tsunade... Maki smiled faintly beneath her mask. So this was before the era of her medical ninjutsu. It was an essential part of the plan—but still years away.
"I'm Jiraiya! I like big sisters, and I hate..."
Jiraiya looked like a fool, spouting nonsense with a grin. A loud, annoying type. Maki saw no value in paying attention to him—at least not yet.
She scanned the classroom again. No sign of Orochimaru.
That was the one she truly cared about. Her destined 'friend.' But there was time. She could wait.
"Aburame Maki! Come in and introduce yourself."
Maki entered the room calmly, her white robes swishing with every step. She looked around at the class.
"Aburame Maki. I like bugs. I hate people. My dream is the stars and the sea."
A beat of silence.
Strange child, the teacher thought, then asked, "Do you understand what you did wrong?"
Maki nodded.
"Will you do it again?"
"Definitely," Maki answered, expressionless.
The teacher felt a migraine forming. He waved her toward her seat, defeated.
What could he do?
"Teacher…" a small voice whimpered.
Hyuga girl had raised her hand, her eyes shimmering with tears.
"Yes?"
"Can I… not sit with Aburame-san?"
Her words trembled as she spoke, on the verge of crying.
The teacher looked around. "Who wants to sit with Maki?"
Silence.
Even the boys averted their gazes. No one wanted to share a desk with someone who raised bugs on her skin.
Just as the teacher was about to despair, a voice called out:
"I'm not afraid. She can sit with me."
Everyone turned. It was a little blonde girl—Tsunade.
The teacher's eyes lit up. As expected of the First Hokage's granddaughter.
"Very well. Maki, sit next to Tsunade."
Maki approached the desk as Tsunade studied her with a curious smile. There was something too keen in her gaze, too amused.
She definitely had some sort of plan.
Still, Maki said nothing and took her seat without a glance.
Tsunade wasn't someone Maki cared about—for now.
Maybe in a year.
At that time, it was all but certain that the three students who would later become the Sannin would be accepted as disciples by the Third Hokage.
"You're strong," Tsunade whispered.
Maki glanced at her. At this stage—when most of the class hadn't even mastered the basic Clone Technique—it wasn't surprising that someone like her, already adept in her clan's secret techniques, stood out as the strongest.
Tsunade, being the First Hokage's granddaughter, clearly had some insight. In truth, very few in the class had even begun to refine chakra. One of the exceptions was the tearful Hyuga girl—an undeniable prodigy for her age.
"But I'm still stronger than you, hmph."
The blonde princess huffed and turned away, dismissively.
Maki gave a dry laugh.
"Funny. But not quite laugh-out-loud funny."
As she said this, a quiet crunch came from her mouth—some insect snack, no doubt.
The teacher at the podium twitched at the sound. A vein popped on his forehead as he took a long, deep breath.
Tsunade, meanwhile, caught a faint scent in the air—oddly fragrant—and wrinkled her nose with a disdainful snort.
The teacher chose to ignore Maki's behavior and began the day's lecture. The class proceeded without any drama. As expected for this early stage of their schooling, there was no formal ninja training involved yet.
When the final bell rang, Maki didn't linger. She left the academy and headed straight into the forest.
She no longer needed chakra control practice—tree walking and water walking had been mastered half a year ago. Leaping from rooftop to branch with practiced ease, she soon arrived at her secret base.
Calling it a "base" was generous. More accurately, it was a damp, underground crypt.
Lit only by candles and a few green-glowing bioluminescent insects, the place was dark and humid—unpleasant for most, but perfect for bugs.
Technically, it was an insect nest, with tunnels branching in all directions and connecting to hidden surface exits. Despite being underground, the ventilation was carefully planned. It didn't feel stuffy.
The tunnel walls were lined with flying parasites. The thick clouds of insects could unsettle even seasoned ninjas, let alone the average person. One look was enough to convince most to never return.
In terms of security and secrecy, Maki had little to worry about. Besides, there wasn't anything here worth stealing—or so it appeared.
This den was part of a long-term plan. Designed as a future laboratory, it had taken half a year for her insect swarm to excavate a central chamber roughly 200 square meters wide, located fifty meters underground.
So far, only the main structure had been completed.
The central chamber held her captured test subjects. A smaller side room functioned as her private living space. Apart from a simple bed, chair, table, and some cabinets, it was bare.
Rows of shelves and glass display cases lined the walls. Inside them: glass jars, wire cages, and various containers holding specimens.
Most of them—bugs, small animals, even some plants—were already dead, preserved in formaldehyde, embalmed, or mounted as dried specimens.
These specimens aren't just for display. Many of the cells in these little creatures are still alive—dormant, maybe, but viable. They might prove useful in the future.
The entire crypt, illuminated by flickering candlelight and eerie green-yellow bioluminescence, looked like something out of a necromancer's lair. It was dark, unsettling, and undeniably creepy—like the operating room of some ancient, wicked lich.
It wasn't that Maki didn't want to make it brighter or more high-tech. The truth was simple: she had no money.
No, really—she had nothing. She had just turned six this year.
All the furniture, jars, and equipment in the lab had been scavenged and repurposed with the help of her insect swarm. Every bit of it was earned through meticulous effort and the relentless work of tiny legs and wings.
"Experiment begins. Recording: Infection Progress Test," she said aloud.
Holding a burning candlestick in one hand, she pulled a small cage forward with the other.
Inside was an adult black cat—not a trained ninja cat, just a stray from the alleys. The cat was barely conscious, wheezing, clearly near death.
Maki set down the candlestick and grabbed a pen and paper. She stared at the black cat in silence, waiting.
Then, something shifted.
The fear that had filled the cat's mind vanished. In its place was calm.
"Infection complete. Progress: 100%. Mental link established."
This was one of Maki's core abilities. She could forge connections with any member of her insect swarm—sensing their moods and commanding them at will.
But first, they had to be infected.
Through repeated experiments, she'd discovered that not just insects—animals and even plants—could be infected and brought under her control.
"The subject is currently in a stable emotional state. Time to full infection: 366 hours. Compared to previous results—6 minutes for ants, 11 hours for mice, and 16 hours for kittens—the larger the body, the slower the infection. This may relate to total cell count."
She jotted down her notes quickly.
"But the infection time difference between kittens and adult cats is too large. Even if an adult has two or three times the number of cells, the gap shouldn't be this wide."
"There may be other critical factors at play."
"For example: mental resistance."
Bugs, with their tiny bodies and simple minds, were easy to infect. Young animals, too, were generally ignorant and defenseless. But adult cats? They were smart—about as cognitively advanced as a human toddler.
"This needs further observation," Maki noted. "Still lacking viable tests on chakra-based lifeforms."
Technically, she had one such creature already: her parasites.
But there was a catch.
These organisms didn't generate chakra on their own—they consumed it. Maki had observed over time that they could absorb chakra and convert it into life energy, sustaining themselves in the process.
They were fascinating creatures—natural chakra conductors, possibly valuable in future experiments.
Her gaze drifted to the other side of the lab, where more experiments were in progress.
Another of her abilities involved extracting genetic material through infection, then recombining and optimizing it—essentially guiding evolution through forced mutation.
It was eerily similar to the Zerg from StarCraft, a connection Maki had made the moment she realized what her power could do.
One of her first successful results? The snack she'd been eating in class.
They were honeypot bugs—redesigned versions of her parasitic insects. These jellybean-sized creatures had no larval stage and matured instantly under chakra stimulation. Once they stored enough nutrients in their swollen abdomens, they detached from the colony and died, leaving behind a juicy, self-contained food pod.
Delicious. Nutritious. Efficient.
But admittedly, not everyone would accept the method of "processing."
Over time, Maki had created several variants. The next step?
Scale.
Her current goal was to transform the parasite colony into something more unified—more structured.
She called it "super-individualization." In other words:
She was building an ant colony.
One mind. Many bodies.