A ninja who is always hungry

It's been three years of continuous effort and some headaches. It turned out that being at the top of the class wasn't as easy as I thought. I completely forgot about Lee's mastery of taijutsu, so surpassing him took a ton of hours of exercise and a lot of muscle aches. The only reason I ended up winning is, without a doubt, because of the food I've been eating these years, all provided by myself.

I've gained a lot of control over the power of the devil fruit, and now the transformation into food happens much faster, with a superior invigorating effect. Over these years, the System has given me more missions, and the reward has almost always been new recipes, and I discovered something very interesting: certain recipes have special effects when eaten, not just the effect already present from my transformed ingredients. The only downside is that all these effects are temporary.

As for the genjutsu lessons, my rival was undoubtedly Sasuke, the ninja with strawberry eyes. Come on, you can't deny it's true. They're the right color, and the tomoe looks like seeds! The look on his face when I first called him that in public was priceless; too bad I didn't have a camera with me then. It took weeks for our classmates to stop calling him that.

Ninjutsu was the easiest for me; I remembered a bunch of advanced control training exercises from the series and practiced them in secret. After all, I got chakra overnight, and that meant my initial control over it was even worse than Naruto's with the Nine-Tails interference.

Tomorrow is graduation, and I must say the time at the academy has been very fruitful. I even discovered that I have talent as a sensory ninja, which was a complete surprise, though a very welcome one.

Now, the bad news? Danzo found out about me and my peculiar ability.

I won't lie: I almost peed my pants when I bumped into him turning a corner on the street. The bastard looked me up and down like a piece of meat and then walked away without saying anything.

I was terrified.

There's only one way to avoid being dragged into the dark side by Danzo, the man who dares to walk into the Uchiha district with a spoon for eyes. You have to go to the Third Hokage and beat it into his head that you're a good seed for the village's future, not just a disposable tool. You have to believe you've soaked up the Will of Fire and live to die for it.

I spent days agonizing over a plan, and luckily for me, one ended up forming in my head.

Sarutobi has always complained about the paperwork that comes with his position and the mental fatigue it causes. So I thought of a way to solve that. And no, I'm not going to point out that with the Shadow Clone technique, he could do his job several times faster. My goal is to stay protected until Orochimaru gets him out of the way. So I went to his office in the afternoon, when the fatigue starts to get to him, and offered him a special bento.

I know, I was also surprised at how easy it was to get into his office. The man only has three ANBU in the office, and even I could sense their location. Perhaps the perks of being a sensory ninja?

Anyway, my bento contained one of the first recipes with special effects that I obtained: Sanji's Pilaf (One Piece).

Not only is it delicious, but it has the temporary effect of refreshing the spirit and mind.

I think it's obvious I'm not going to give the old man anything that could help him get stronger.

This man has to die if I want the village to prosper at some point!

The more prosperous it is, the safer my clan will be, the better my future business will be, and the less I'll have to worry about my personal safety.

He acted like a grateful old man touched by my concern, but if he thinks I didn't notice how he discreetly stashed away the unopened cup of instant ramen, then he's taking me for a fool. I think the only reasons he agreed to eat it are:

He needs to appear approachable to the next generation.

He surely found a way to verify that it wasn't poisoned or drugged.

He's sick of eating fast food.

He's heard of the fame of my dishes.

I don't know what it could be, but being Sarutobi, it's surely another conspiracy.

He ate it happily, praising the good work on the dish, and when he noticed his fatigue disappearing and feeling well again, he was stunned. I took advantage of his strong impression and told him about my dream of starting a ninja grocery business. Damn! I think I even went into Naruto's Talk no Jutsu mode, I got so into the role. For a second, I felt my IQ drop a few points.

Sarutobi was thrilled with the idea, and I even made a deal with him. The terms were that I, Tony Akimichi, would provide him with two free Sanji's Pilaf bentos a day while he was in the village, for the Third Hokage's lifetime. In exchange, Sarutobi gave me a document with his seal and the Hokage's signature, effective immediately, stating that I would NEVER be recruited by ROOT and that the village would NEVER investigate my commercial and culinary secrets as long as I made my company headquarters in the village.

Honestly, all I asked for was not to be in ROOT.

The rest, I guess, was a long-term investment for the village's benefit. What the old man doesn't know is that the document he gave me only gives me a temporary obligation of… how long did the Chunin Exams take exactly? A few months?

For a few months of free bento, Danzo couldn't drag me to the dark side, and neither he, nor the bitter advisors, nor whoever the future Hokage is, could pry into the secrets of my future business. As long as I have the headquarters in the village, my business has become legally untouchable.

Of course, I'm not stupid. I'm well aware that if Danzo wants something, he'll try to do it in secret, use rumors, deny his involvement, and all that.

I'll figure something out later. My immediate goal was achieved, and then some. I made sure to make dozens of copies of the document and hide several copies in secret locations just in case.

"Now that I think about it, how are they going to divide the genin teams?" Tony wondered. "My presence will cause one of us to be left out unless they form a four-person team, but that would be strange. Will the teams I know change? I'm a bit curious about who my captain will be…"

The graduation took place the next day, and as expected, everyone received their ninja headbands except Naruto. He still has to go through Iruka's rescue, right? No matter, he'll see it when the groups are formed. Maybe I can even ask him to teach me the Shadow Clone technique. Or at least I hope so, because otherwise it means I'll have to take his place along with Sasuke strawberry eyes, ahem, I mean Uchiha, and Sakura, the bipolar screamer. Seriously, Sakura went on missions with her pink hair and matching clothes, practically screaming, "I'm a target!" How did she survive long enough to become Tsunade's disciple?

After the celebration banquet at the Akimichi clan, Tony went to his room to claim the reward he had been dreaming of for the past few weeks.

[The host has successfully completed the mission!]

[Rewards are being delivered.]

Tony looked at the information of the two rewards and felt his mind explode.

"F*CK! Are you serious?"

He reread the descriptions three times and went to wash his face with cold water to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

"Holy crap, I think Rob smoked the same stuff as Kojima. How did he come up with this?!"