Celestial Sandstorm

[GeomZii]

Celestial Sandstorm

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 1: A Stranger in the Desert
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A dry, relentless heat that sucks moisture from lungs with every breath. It was the second thing I noticed. The first was sand. It was everywhere. Gritty, fine sand. It was a taste on my tongue, a smell in my nostrils, and the feeling of tiny needles on my skin. I tried to open my eyes, but the glare was blinding: a white-hot sun overhead that seemed to pierce straight through my skull. I squinted, tears streaming down my cheeks, and tried to move. My limbs didn't respond the way they should. They were small and weak.


What the…

"Shh, shh, little one. Don't cry." A Gentle Female voice, which was familiar in a way that made no sense because I had never heard it before. I felt myself being lifted, cradled against something warm. A heartbeat thrummed beneath my ear, steady and soothing. The scent of sweat and sun-baked cloth filled my nose. I tried to speak, but what came out was a wet, gurgling cry.

No. No, no, no. I was a baby. OH!

The woman, apparently, rocked me gently, murmuring soft words I couldn't understand. Her language was foreign, melodic in a way that reminded me of... something. Something I couldn't quite place. I forced my eyes open again, ignoring the sting of the sun, and looked at her face. Dark hair, brown skin, and tired eyes that held love.

The first few months were a haze of sensory overload and existential crisis. I learned quickly that I was in a village. The sounds that drifted through the open window of our small home were distinct: the rhythmic clang of metal against metal, the murmur of voices haggling in a market, the occasional whoosh of something cutting through the air. The air itself was dry, gritty, and carried the faint scent of heated sand. Desert, my infant brain supplied. Definitely a desert village.

My matron, I learned her name was Aiko. An orphanage matron, from what I could gather. And she manages many orphans. She always speaks to us and sings to us gently. I was not able to understand any words except a word here and there. Shinobi, Sunagakure, Kazekage were the most common.

Oh, oh. And when she brought me outside, I was able to see behind her; beyond the shade of the cloth canopy, I saw a village. Sandstone buildings, curved domes, narrow streets choked with dust. People in loose robes, their faces wrapped against the elements. And in the distance, a massive structure that rose to the sky like a skyscraper.


No way.

I knew that silhouette. I had seen it in anime, in fan art, in countless fanfiction covers.

Sunagakure.

I had been reincarnated in Sunagakure, the weakest ninja village, the Hidden Sand Village. The desert death village. The place where Gaara went crazy and Orochimaru started a war, and everything went to shit.

Of all the places…

I started full-throated screaming, a shriek filled with terror that tore from my tiny lungs with a force that surprised even me.

"Kaito! Kaito, what's wrong?"

My Matron Aiko pulled me closer, her face creased with worry. She checked my swaddling, felt my forehead, looked for any sign of injury or illness. She found nothing. Because there was nothing physically wrong with me. I was just terrified. I was reborn in the Naruto world, a death world.

And then I felt something. A tiny pull that was barely a whisper that came from the inside. A presence that wasn't there before. And just before my eyes was a translucent book. When I focused on it, it became clearly visible, and knowledge rushed into my mind. A Cheat, which only I could see. Celestial Grimoire, a Cosmic artifact. With this, I may be able to survive. No, I may be able to thrive. I waited and waited, yet no powers were granted to me. No freebies or beginner packages were available. Months passed by, and I was starting to wonder whether I had imagined it. Meanwhile, I started to sit and walk. I tried opening the celestial grimoire many times, but nothing happened. Frustrated, I even tried to search my chakra, but it seemed my talent in that regard was average, as I was not able to even sense chakra. And when I took my first steps at 8 months. it happened,

Celestial Grimoire — 250CP

Perk Gained

Nutrition (50 CP) — The Witcher Novels
In these times, famine is a real danger, and many people spend long, exhausting time at work just to keep themselves fed. Food is bland for the poor, and what they eat depends on the time of the year and their location. Only the rich and powerful can allow themselves diversity and delicacies like catoblepas meat. Before you start to rage at the world for lacking fast food chains, know that while you may not enjoy the taste of your food, it is much more filling for you, as you need very little to sustain yourself. Only one or two good meals a week will suffice for a balanced diet for your person. Though do your best not to unveil this before others, as many starve on what keeps you thriving.


Accept?

What? Yes... yes.

Remaining CP — 200


I have so many questions now. I had not been able to open it and began to think it was broken, and all of a sudden it gave me this power. What was CP, and how did I earn CP? Was it the first milestone achievement or something like that? Right. It happened just after I took my first steps. But how do I gain CP? And what even is CP? Cost price? I tried summoning the Celestial Grimoire again but failed. Uhh, I will figure it out later. But this perk will come in handy, as food was always short in suna orphanages. Everyone was frail in the orphanage, and I was weak too.


I observed that the orphanage ran on a schedule as rigid as the desert itself. Wake before dawn, when the air was still cold enough to raise goosebumps on bare arms. The matrons moved through the dormitory with wooden clappers, striking them together in a sharp, rhythmic clatter that burrowed into your skull and refused to leave. No words. Just the sound, and the expectation that you would rise.

I learned to dress myself before I could walk properly. A single set of clothes: loose linen trousers, a faded tunic the color of dust, sandals made from woven reeds that wore through in weeks. In winter, a thin wool cloak. In summer, nothing but the linen, which clung to sweat-slicked skin and never seemed to dry.

Breakfast was served in the communal hall: a long, low-ceilinged room with sandstone walls and narrow windows that let in slivers of light. The tables were rough-hewn planks, scarred by years of use. The benches were harder than the floor. We sat in rows, oldest to youngest, and waited.

The food was always the same. Porridge made from millet, thin enough to see the bottom of the bowl. A single date, sometimes. A cup of water that tasted of iron and dust. The older children got larger portions. The youngest got what was left. I had recently started to eat solid food slowly. I learned quickly to keep my head down and not react when the boy beside me coughed into his bowl or the girl across the table stared at my food with hollow eyes.

Two good meals a week. That was what my perk required. Two meals that actually filled my stomach, that gave me energy, that let my body grow the way it was supposed to. But the orphanage served thin gruel seven days a week. There was no "good meal." There was only survival.

So I adapted.

I ate what I was given. I let my body absorb every scrap of nutrition, every grain of millet, every drop of moisture. The perk did the rest, stretching what little I had, making it enough. I didn't grow strong. But I didn't wither, either.

The matrons noticed, eventually. Not that I was healthy; I was careful to keep my frame thin, my movements sluggish, my eyes dull. But I was alive. The other children my age had hollow cheeks and stick-thin limbs. Some had bellies swollen from malnutrition. Some coughed constantly, their lungs never quite clearing. Some simply… faded. Went to sleep and didn't wake up.

Don't stand out. The words echoed in my skull every time a matron looked at me a moment too long. I learned to slump my shoulders and drag my feet. I usually let my gaze wander vacantly when the cold matron walked past.

Chores came next. Even the youngest children had tasks like folding blankets and sweeping sand from the floors, which was a futile task, since the sand came back within hours. Carrying water from the communal well to the kitchen was done by big kids, and sorting dried herbs for the infirmary was left for younger ones. The work was endless, repetitive, designed not to teach us skills but to keep us occupied and exhausted.

I didn't mind the chores. They gave me an excuse to move slowly and observe.

I learned the rhythm of the orphanage the way a prisoner learns the rhythm of his cell. The food arrived twice a day, always late. When the matrons changed shifts three times, with a brief overlap in the afternoon when the day matrons gossiped and the night matrons slept. Which children were troublemakers: a boy named Jiro who stole food and was beaten for it, a girl named Sari who talked too much and was slapped for it. Which children were favored: the strong ones, the quiet ones, the ones who never cried.

Which children disappeared.

Ren had been one of those. I stopped letting myself think about Ren.

Afternoon lessons came in the courtyard, when the sun was at its highest, and the heat was a physical weight pressing down on your skull. The older children learned to read and write, tracing characters in the sand with sticks. The younger ones like me sat in the shade of a tattered awning and listened.

Old Yumi taught the stories of Sunagakure; the founding of the village and the First Kazekage's unification of the desert clans was everyone's favorite. The Second Kazekage's rise to power. The stories of battles of the warring era, the older conflicts, and whatever stories and rumors passed down to civilians. The famous blood feuds and the betrayals.

At 1 year old, I was able to understand the language somewhat.

And the head matron spoke slowly to all orphans.

"The sand never forgets."



I could smell propaganda in the air.


That's what the old Head Matron told us ."Sand remembers every footstep, every drop of blood, every tear," she said, her weathered hands sifting the grains through her fingers. "It holds the memory of all who walked before, and it waits. The sand is our mother," Old Matron continued. "Our father, our ancestor, and our descendant. The sand was here before the first Kazekage drew breath, and it will be here long after the last shinobi falls." She knelt, scooping a handful of sand from the courtyard floor. "Feel it," she said. "Feel the weight, the texture, and the warmth." The children obeyed. I did too, my small fingers sifting through the grains. "The sand remembers," Old Yumi, her name, said. "Every footprint, every tear, and every drop of blood spilled in defense of our village. The sand holds the memory of all who came before us. It is our history. Our legacy. Our soul."



That is some intense level Bullshit lady.


She let the sand fall through her fingers. "To be born of Sunagakure is to be born of the sand. You are not orphans. You are children of the desert. And the desert does not abandon its own."

"The Kazekage is the sand made flesh," she said. "The desert chooses its champion, and the champion becomes the desert. The First Kazekage was chosen by the sand itself. The Second Kazekage carries that blessing forward."



Yay. Next, she will say the desert chose the Kazekage to be the god of shinobi.


I listened with two sets of ears: the ears of a child learning his place in the world, and the ears of a man from another dimension who knew the truth.

The Kazekage was not chosen by the sand. The Kazekage was a political position, a military title, a symbol of power in a village built on blood and iron. The First Kazekage had been a warlord who united the scattered clans of the Land of Wind through force and cunning. And also due to helplessness, two of the strongest clans, Senju and Uchiha, were united, creating the first ninja village, and many other clans had also continued to join. The other ninja clans in other nations had merely followed suit, either adapting to the new system or becoming a footnote in history swap away by the united ninja clans of Konoha. The Second was his successor, chosen by council and circumstance. He was chosen because he was second in command of the First Kazekage and the strongest shinobi at the time.

But that wasn't what Old Yumi taught.

"To serve the Kazekage is to serve the sand," she said. "To die for the Kazekage is to return to the sand. There is no greater honor. There is no greater purpose."

The children nodded and easily believed. In fact, it seems even the adults believed, or they needed to believe.

And I understood why. I knew how empires were built not just on swords and gold, but on stories. The Romans had their founding myths, the British had their civilizing mission, the Americans had their manifest destiny. Konoha had the Will of Fire.

Sunagakure only had the desert and its endless sands and eternal winds. Propaganda was genius, really, I realised. The desert was harsh and deadly. Life here was a constant struggle against heat, thirst, and starvation. The people needed something to believe in, something to justify their suffering.

The sand remembers.
The sand provides.
The sand protects.

Every child in the orphanage grew up believing that their hardship was noble, their sacrifice meaningful, their loyalty absolute. They would die for Sunagakure without hesitation, not because they were forced to, but because they believed. Old Yumi wasn't just a matron. She was a priestess of the desert faith, a keeper of the flame that burned in every Suna shinobi's heart, and perhaps an old shinobi lookout for talent and preparing the fodder. And her sermons were the kindling. The Sermon of Sacrifice.

She looked at each of us in turn, her obsidian eyes reflecting the torchlight.

"You are not children," she said. "You are sands, and sands cannot be destroyed. It can only be scattered, and scattered sands always finds its way home." What bullshit is she spouting, and yet I felt the words settle into the hearts of the children around me. I saw their spines straighten, jaws tighten, and eyes harden. They were ready to fight for Suna.

Die for Suna. A dark thought whispered in my mind.

This is how you build an army, I thought. This is how you build a nation. And this propaganda was in everything, in our stories, in games, in talks and metaphors.

Over the months, I was starting to grow healthy, my perk helping me in that regard. And matrons were starting to notice.

"Kaito has grown healthy," the head matron said. "Are you feeding him extra? " she asked.

"No, but he has recently grown healthy and even started to walk early. Kaito is very active," she said.

"Hmm. He will make a fine shinobi," the head matron said coldly.

Uhh! I will have to scale back all my efforts.

Even though I am a grown adult inside with great power like the Celestial Grimoire, my body is still that of a baby. There is only so much I can do to survive if somebody becomes curious about my health and decides to experiment on me.


Quickly, I decided on three rules. Don't stand out, Don't trust anyone, and do whatever it takes to survive. Everything else could wait.


Experimenting with my perk, I have come to realize that I do not need to eat much, only two good meals in a week. That roughly translates to five or six servings of food that we get each time in the orphanage. I could still eat like a normal child. And eating more than two good meals in a week does not seem to have any benefit.



Small mercies.


I grew slowly, trying to blend in like the way all children grow in Suna's orphanages. Malnutrition that had stunted my frame was beginning to fade away. I heard everything I could; adults usually speak freely around babies. I heard the history of this world I now inhabited.


There was no mention of Shinobi Wars or the great villages; Konoha, Suna, Iwa, Kumo, Kiri had barely formed 3 decades back. Second Kazekage's rule is not even a decade old. But the long peace has certainly disillusioned people, I observed, and tension was already brewing. I was not able to get anything concrete, of course. But I knew that I was too far back in the timeline before canon. I don't have much knowledge of this era, and even my knowledge of canon is useless now. I am bound to make waves and changes even if I hold back, which I doubt I can, especially with my Celestial Grimoire. And by the time canon arrives, any change I made will spiral over the decades. My knowledge of canon is now more of a guideline than any concrete knowledge.

I had scaled back my efforts and only started talking after other kids my age had. My plan worked; matrons have started to focus on other kids. Meanwhile, Celestial Grimoire stirred recently,



Celestial Grimoire — 200CP


Perk Gained



Animagus (200 CP) — Harry Potter

You are an Animagus, allowing you to change into an animal at will. A golden eagle is your animagus.


Accept?



I had read about Animagi. In another life and another world, I had devoured those books like a starving man devours bread. The idea of transformation, of becoming something other had always fascinated me. And now it was real and mine, if I wanted it.

Golden eagle.

I imagined it. The wind beneath my wings, the world spread out below me like a map, tiny and distant and free. I imagined flying over the dunes, over the village, over the endless desert. I imagined leaving it all behind: the hunger, the fear, the endless sand. I imagined being untouchable.

My hands trembled.

Yes. Accept. Accept now.

But another voice, quieter and colder, whispered from the back of my mind.

And then what?

And then what happens when someone sees you? When a shinobi spots a golden eagle circling the orphanage, day after day? When a hunter-nin traces it back to you? When the Kazekage's intelligence division captures you and wants to know how a child from a Suna orphanage can transform into a bird?

They won't kill you. They'll study you. They'll dissect you. They'll find the Celestial Grimoire, somehow, and then they'll take it. Or they'll kill you trying.

I closed my eyes. The temptation was a physical ache in my chest, a wanting so deep it felt like grief.

I could fly, I thought. I could be free.

I could be captured.

I could escape.

I could be dissected.

The two voices warred. The child in me, the part that was still small and scared and desperate for power, screamed at me to accept. To take the gift and to stop being so cautious.

The adult in me, the part that had lived and died and learned the hard way that power without wisdom was a death sentence, whispered back:

Not yet. Not while you're weak. Not while you can't protect yourself.

I opened my eyes. The words in front of me were shining brightly,



Celestial Grimoire — 200CP


Perk Gained



Animagus (200 CP) — Harry Potter

You are an Animagus, allowing you to change into an animal at will. A golden eagle is your animagus.



Accept?


No.


Remaining CP — 200



So I rejected it, as such an ability was too high-profile, too different, especially while I was still a baby. I regretted not taking the perk, but I did not know whether I would be able to control it or not, and it randomly transforms into a golden eagle. Even after I became an adult, such a perk would be difficult to explain, although I would have the strength to protect myself. I will have to think about which perks I should choose, which to ignore, and which perks are worth the CP. I will only take perks that could be hidden or explained, at least till I get old and strong. Instant Power is not worth it if I end up on the battlefield early or, worse experiment lab. So, how does the celestial grimoire work? I made sure to only talk after many kids started talking. I was not first in that sense. So it is not the first to achieve, but the first individual milestone achievement or something else.



Now, Only If I could learn what CP is? Too many questions.

This thing should have come with a manual.



The first sandstorm hit when I was fourteen months old.

I was in the courtyard, sitting in the shade of a tattered awning, watching the older children practice their calligraphy in the sand. The sky had been clear moments before, a pale, washed-out blue that was the closest thing Sunagakure ever had to a "nice day." Then the light changed.

It happened fast. The sun dimmed, and the air grew thick, heavy, charged with something that made the hair on my arms stand up. I looked up and saw it: a wall of brown cloud rising from the horizon, towering and relentless, swallowing the sky.

Oh, shit.

"Inside!" a matron screamed. "Everyone inside!"

The courtyard erupted into chaos. Older children dropped their sticks and ran. Younger ones stumbled, confused, crying. The matrons grabbed whoever was closest, shoving them toward the door.

I was too far from the entrance. I'd been sitting in the corner, trying to stay out of the way, trying not to be noticed, and now that caution was about to kill me.

The storm hit before I could reach the door.

It was like being buried alive. The sand filled my eyes, my nose, my mouth. I couldn't breathe or see. The wind shrieked in my ears, a sound like a thousand dying animals. I felt myself lifted off the ground, tumbling, scraping across stone.

No. No, no, no

A hand grabbed my ankle, then my arm. Then I was being hauled through the sand, dragged across the courtyard, shoved through the door just as the storm reached its peak.

The door slammed shut behind me. The sound was swallowed by the wind.

I lay on the floor of the dormitory, coughing, gasping, sand spilling from my lips. Aiko was there, her hands on my face, checking me for injuries. Her own hair was caked with dust, her eyes red and streaming.

"You're safe," she said. "You're safe. The sand didn't take you."

I wanted to speak and thank her. But all I could do was cough; a wet, rattling sound that made her pull me closer.

Outside, the storm raged for hours. It scoured the village, stripped paint from walls, filled every crevice with grit. The windows rattled, and the walls groaned. Sand piled against the door, sealing us in.

The children huddled together in the center of the room, wrapping themselves in blankets, trying to stay warm. The temperature dropped; the storm sucked the heat from the air, leaving only cold, dry wind. I huddled with them, shivering, my throat raw and my lungs burning.

This is life in Suna, I thought. The desert can kill you at any moment.

The storm finally passed in the early hours of the morning. The door was dug out. The courtyard was buried. The well was choked with sand and had to be cleared before anyone could drink.

No one died that time. But I heard whispers among the matrons of worse storms, storms that had buried weak and old buildings. Storms that had left children orphaned and shinobi dead.

The sand remembers.

I was starting to believe it.

After that, I learned to watch the sky and to read the wind. To feel the pressure change in the air before a storm hit. The older children taught me the signs: the stillness, the strange color in the sky, the way the animals went quiet.

"When the desert holds its breath," a boy named Jiro told me, "you run."

I never forgot.


I started again to focus on my chakra. Try to sense it or feel it; I did not know the right terminology yet; it seems like a simple thing in the anime. Everyone has it, even the civilians. Even normal animals, plants, and insects have it. In fact, every living thing in this world has chakra.

But I am not of this world. A voice whispered in my head.

What if my reincarnation has messed up my chakra? What if Chakra depended on the soul, and I do not have any chakra, as my soul was originally from a normal universe? Or what if I turned out to be chakra-crippled like Rock Lee?

No, no, I should not think such dark thoughts. If being an adult was the only parameter for unlocking chakra, there should be many more chakra users apart from ninjas, monks, and samurais. Almost every adult civilian would have unlocked chakra, which was not the case. Or at least I hope it was not here.



Focusing on the things I could do, I began learning the orphanage's routines. When food arrived, when the matrons changed shifts, which children were troublemakers, which children were favored, which ones were sick, which ones disappeared. That last category bothered me. Children occasionally left the orphanage. Some were adopted, some were taken by relatives. And some... The matrons never explained. I learned not to ask. In Sunagakure, questions could be more dangerous than answers. The matrons started teaching us reading and writing, and older kids started teaching us games- shinobi games, I Spy. I also started getting into a peaceful schedule. And when I turned 2 years old, the First Shinobi War, or as it was called, the Shinobi War, or simply War, started.

And somehow, I had a feeling that the war wasn't going to be the most dangerous thing coming for me.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

 

[V10D_B0RNE]

Let's see where this goes...

 

[GeomZii]

Rough/unedited Drafts.

When people imagined Sunagakure, they thought of sand.

They envisioned a village of shinobi struggling beneath an unforgiving desert, a nation poor enough to seem barely deserving of its place among the Five Great Shinobi Countries. The weakest of the great villages. A place associated with wind techniques, puppeteers, poisons, and assassins. Perhaps that was the greatest irony of all—and, according to the story I remembered, one of Suna's defining traits. Its shinobi so often existed as the perfect counterpoint to the protagonists.

Side villages whose primary purpose was to demonstrate just how righteous the Konoha was, disposable enemies. and antagonist. Other villages produced people capable of atrocities that existed solely to make the protagonists shine brighter by comparison. The narrative loved portraying them as emotionless killers who reveled in bloodshed. Their history seemed to have been written in corpses.

Technology was weird in Suna. Once I had believed I had been born into some distant feudal era. We had baths, but no telephones nor convenient indoor plumbing. Paper existed, Musical instruments existed, Cigarettes existed and so did alcohol. As far as I could tell, civilization had progressed a respectable distance. From the scraps of information I could gather and my knowledge of the world, civilization has diverted and gone tangents in many sectors, presumably because of presence of mystical energy. Most of the earth technological inventions and machinery roots were in warfare. Chakra has fulfilled that role, halting progress in military, communication and many similar sectors.

My caretaker who used to hum softly while rocking me back and forth, the gentle rhythm gradually lulling me into peaceful sleep. Then everything changed. The world descended into chaos, War erupted. Skirmish followed skirmish and battle followed battle. The unfamiliar insignia of Sunagakure began appearing with increasing frequency. The headbands became common. That was when I stopped being curious. I had been quiet before the war. Afterward, I became determined to be as invisible as humanly possible. Drawing the attention seemed like an exceptionally poor survival strategy.

Unfortunately, I was beginning to suspect that avoiding notice wouldn't necessarily save me.

Eventually, I discovered the year. 32 AV. Thirty-two years after the end of the Warring States Era and the establishment of Konoha. Sunagakure itself was only a year or two younger. But saying it was apparently heresy. According to the head matron and the priestess of the sands, Sunagakure had been the world's first true shinobi village. Its creation had supposedly brought an end to humanity's age of endless violence and ushered in an era of enlightenment.

I couldn't remember how long the First Shinobi War had lasted from anime. Canon had barely bothered to explain it. But I understood enough to know that the reality was probably considerably uglier.

I wanted to become a shinobi. Supernatural power was practically sitting in front of me. And thanks to my cheat, becoming at least a jōnin seemed almost guaranteed. I would just have to compromise everything I believed about the sanctity of human life. Killing, Stealing, Possibly torture. Those were the job requirements.

What choice did I have?

More importantly, I needed to start moving. So I began observing the other children. There were bigger kids but they spend most time outside playing. There were two others kids who were raised with me, Hiro and Mido. They were older than me about a year yet they had started following me. Hiro was the cutest baby in the orphanage. He was the also energetic and active. Mido, the baby girl was quiet and shy. And then there was me. I had started investigating my own chakra. Stories had always made meditation sound important when it came to mystical powers. Surely Meditation was key to success.

It took months of searching inward, concentrating and wondering whether I had chakra or my reincarnation has messed something. Then about a half year after war started when I became two and half years, I finally felt a tiny flicker. Barely a spark. Something deep inside me that responded when I reached toward it.

And for the second time since my reincarnation, I felt Celestial grimoire stir.

Celestial Grimoire — 950 CP

Once Every Century — 200 CP

Fate/Legends – Empires of Antiquity

Talent that appears only once every hundred years might seem extraordinary in the present, but viewed against the vastness of history, it simply means there have already been a dozen or two people like you.World-class talent may represent the pinnacle of what an ordinary human can accomplish, but for those who enter the world of magic, it is merely the beginning.Like the legendary Salieri and his musical genius, you possess world-class talent in one artistic discipline of your choosing.

Singing.

Piano.

Painting.

Architecture.

Acting.

Calligraphy.

Healing.

Or almost any other art.

With sufficient connections, you could become one of the greatest practitioners of your chosen art in mundane history.

But your potential extends beyond that.

You possess an innate advantage when learning magical spells and abilities associated with your chosen art. Such techniques are easier for you to master, somewhat easier to utilize, and slightly more potent when wielded by you.

Magic channeled through a specialized musical instrument becomes stronger for a master musician.

A painter finds spells involving paintings and drawn imagery significantly more effective.

And so on.

I spent a considerable amount of time debating what art to choose and finally it was a tie between two arts that would prove most useful.

Calligraphy was tempting. Its relationship with Fuinjutsu alone made it incredibly attractive. Sealing was arguably one of the most versatile disciplines available to a shinobi. Improving my aptitude for them could provide enormous benefits later.

But healing was equally tempting. Perhaps even more so. Medical knowledge would directly increase my chances of survival. It would also keep me away from battlefield and war as much as possible. It will help me save lives. And Sunagakure already possessed extensive knowledge concerning poisons, antidotes, and toxins. If I could combine that knowledge with exceptional healing talent and whatever basic modern biology and hygiene I remember from school and searched online, the possibilities were difficult to ignore. In the end, I chose healing.

Chosen Art — Healing

Accept?

Yes.

Remaining CP — 750

The war brought urgency to everything. Everyone moved faster. The entire village seemed to have been thrown into motion. Suna's stagnant economy had almost certainly been transformed by wartime demands. For the first time in years, perhaps since it's creation, money was circulating with purpose.

The orphanage had a rhythm, mornings were for feeding, midday was for lessons, evenings were for bathing and bed. Between those markers, the matrons moved like clockwork—efficient, unhurried, their hands never still. There were four of them. Aiko, who cared for the youngest children and smelled of sandalwood and clean linen. Mira, who handled the older orphans and rarely spoke above a whisper. Sayuki , who cooked and cleaned and pretended not to notice when children stole extra bread. And the head matron Yumi.

The orphanage had rules. Not many, but they were enforced with absolute consistency. Don't steal from the kitchen. Don't fight in the dormitories. Don't leave the compound without permission. I followed all of them. Not because I was obedient. But because breaking the rules drew attention. And attention was the one thing I couldn't afford. The other children didn't understand.

Aiko was perhaps the closest thing I had to a mother in this life. She was young for a matron—barely into her twenties, with calloused hands and a laugh that came easily. Unlike the head matron, who watched me with calculating eyes, Aiko simply... accepted me. Oddities and all.

"You walk like you're sneaking," she observed one morning, watching me walking after her with exaggerated care. "Are you practicing to be a ghost?" I shrugged, unwilling to explain that I was testing my balance. That every step was an exercise in chakra control—tiny pulses through my feet, learning to grip the packed-earth floor without leaving marks. She laughed. "You're a strange one, sand grain. But I like you."

The games were the first real education I received. Not the official curriculum, but the informal training that Sunagakure's orphanage system had refined over years.

Aiko led us through stretching routines every morning. To the other children, it was simply play—reaching for the sky, touching our toes, bending like reeds in the wind. But I recognized the movements for what they were: foundational flexibility training. The kind of stretches that would later allow a shinobi to contort mid-combat, to absorb falls, to move in ways the human body wasn't naturally designed for. "Higher, little bird," Aiko encouraged, pressing gently on my back as I reached for my toes. "The desert rewards those who bend without breaking."

I filed that away. The clapping games were next. Simple rhythms at first—pat-a-cake variations that any child might learn. But as we grew older, they became more complex. Faster. Requiring precise timing and coordination.

Clap. Clap. Cross. Clap. Behind. Clap. Front.

I watched the other children struggle. Watched them miss beats, fumble the sequences, laugh it off and try again. I didn't struggle. Not because I was naturally gifted—though the Celestial Grimoire had probably helped with that—but because I understood what these games were actually teaching. Hand-eye coordination, pattern recognition, ability to execute precise movements under time pressure.

These were shinobi skills, disguised as childhood diversions. The finger games were the most revealing. Aiko would hold up her hands, fingers splayed, and we would mimic her movements. Simple at first—touching thumb to each finger in sequence, folding them one by one, making shapes that seemed meaningless. But then the patterns grew intricate.

Crane. Snake. Ram. Bird.

I recognized them immediately, handseals. The foundation of ninjutsu, hidden in plain sight as children's games. I practiced obsessively. Not just during Aiko's sessions, but in every spare moment—fingers dancing through sequences while I waited for meals, while I lay in my cot at night, while I watched the other children play. The other orphans thought I was strange. They weren't wrong. But I tried to mix between kids as much as possible.

The yoga-like stretching sessions became my favorite part of the day. Not because I enjoyed them—though I did, in a way. But because they gave me an excuse to practice chakra control without drawing suspicion.

Reach for the sky. I extended my arms, pushing chakra into my fingertips, feeling the faint tingle of energy circulating through my tenketsu.

Bend like a reed. I folded forward, drawing chakra down through my spine, feeling it pool in my core.

Balance on one foot. I lifted a leg, channeling chakra through my sole, testing how long I could hold the position before my control slipped.

The other children wobbled and fell. I stayed steady. Aiko noticed. "You have good balance, sand grain," she said, crouching beside me. "Better than most."

I shrugged. "I practice."

"I can see that." She studied me for a long moment. "Do you know why we do these exercises?"

I could have told her the truth. That they were building our bodies for the rigors of shinobi life. That the stretches were designed to prevent injury during training. That the balance exercises were the first step toward tree-walking and water-walking and all the other techniques that defied physics. Instead, I said: "To be strong?"

She smiled. "To survive."

Morning stretching became chakra control practice—pushing energy into my limbs, holding it there, releasing it in controlled bursts. Afternoon games became hand seal drills—memorizing sequences, building muscle memory, training my fingers to move faster than thought. Evening meditation became deep cultivation—drawing chakra from my core, circulating it through my body, expanding my reserves one agonizing inch at a time. I only used chakra exercise internally and only when I was alone as here kids don't usually start on basic chakra exercises before 4 years old.

I learned everything I could. Practiced every moment I could steal. Prepared for a future that was rushing toward me faster than I was ready for. And in the quiet moments—the moments between waking and sleeping, between one breath and the next—I remembered. I remembered why I was doing this. Power. Freedom. The ability to choose my own destiny. The memories grounded me. Reminded me that I was still human. Still me. Even if I was about to become something else.

The war has brought new faces to the orphanage. Refugees, mostly. Families who had lost everything in the fighting. Children whose parents had been shinobi—and who were now orphans in truth, not just in circumstance.

Then, after roughly about two years of intermittent battles, the war finally began to lose momentum. The fighting slowed. The constant tension gradually eased. For the first time in what felt like forever, I allowed myself to breathe. The war had been short. Thank God. I had survived. And now, with the worst of the immediate chaos apparently behind us, I finally had the opportunity to begin something else. I had learned to read. I had learned to write. And slowly, cautiously, I began preparing for the future.

 

[Son-Of-Scorn]

I don't necessarily agree on the whole going undetected method, never works long term but I suppose if the aim is to simply survive then it can work for a bit.

 

[GeomZii]

Rough/unedited Drafts.

The question had been burning inside me for months. "When will we be allowed to go out like other kids?"
Aiko paused mid-step, turning to look down at me with that gentle smile she reserved for the youngest orphans. The morning light caught the edges of her face, softening the tired lines around her eyes. "Eager to fly, little grain?"

Little grain. A common nickname. use to call little kids in affection.

I shrugged, not trusting myself to speak. The truth was more complicated than she could know. I didn't just want to play outside. I wanted to see the villageand to map its streets. To understand the world I had been reborn into. Aiko crouched beside me, her calloused hand resting on my shoulder. "Now that the war has ended, there will be fewer restrictions for us orphanages. You all will be allowed more time outside." She tilted her head, considering. "As for you, Kaito, Hiro, Mido—I think it's time."

Kaito. The name still felt strange on my tongue, even after years of hearing it. A borrowed identity in a borrowed life. Hiro whooped with excitement, already running toward the gate. Mido followed, his short legs pumping furiously to keep up. I walked.

It always amazed me how carelessly the adults spoke of war in front of children.
The war ended. Fewer restrictions. More freedom.
As if war were a season. As if it were something that simply passed, like sandstorms or droughts. Perhaps that was the cultural shift in this world—the ever-present nature of conflict had numbed them to its horrors. Shinobi wars, Mercenary wars, Noble plots that inevitably involved bloodshed, Daimyo power struggles, Samurai duels and ever-present bandits who preyed on the weak and the unwary. War was the background noise of this world. The constant hum beneath every conversation. And children grew up knowing nothing else.

Aiko took us out more often after that.

The village was calm. Serene, even. Sandstone buildings rose from the desert floor like natural formations, their edges smoothed by wind and time. Shinobi moved through the streets with quiet purpose. Merchants hawked their wares. Children played in the alleys. It looked peaceful. I knew better. The sand and heat I had expected. But I always wondered why it was called the Land of Wind. Then the hot winds came, even within the security of the village walls—blowing through the streets, carrying grit and the distant smell of ozone. Despite the high walls surrounding Sunagakure, the winds still found its way in. It always did.

That's why, I realized. The wind defines this place. It shapes everything, the people, buildings and the way they think. The desert didn't care about walls. It simply was.

The merchants were a revelation. I had assumed, in my previous life's understanding of economics, that commerce followed predictable patterns. Supply and demand, visible inventory, open negotiation. The shinobi world was different. Merchants always seemed to possess exactly what a shinobi needed. But never openly. The useful merchandise—weapons, scrolls, specialized tools—was hidden somewhere behind the visible displays. Behind curtains and beneath counters. In back rooms that were guarded by silent men with sharp eyes. Cheap goods remained on display. Fabrics, food, simple tools. But the valuable merchandise was concealed. I watched a shinobi approach a merchant—a chūnin by the look of his vest, his headband slightly askew. The man spoke quietly. The merchant nodded. They disappeared into the back of the stall. When the shinobi emerged, he was carrying a scroll I hadn't seen before. The transaction had taken less than a minute.

Interesting.

I wondered whether the limited availability of certain goods was caused by shinobi greed itself or it was opposite. And why pay for something when you could simply take it? Perhaps merchants who understood the system simply adjusted their business practices accordingly. Hidden inventory, quiet transactions, prices negotiated in whispers. It was a fascinating lesson in economics. And a reminder that in this world, power determined everything.

The orphanage had its own ecosystem.
At its center was Old Yumi—though no one called her that to her face. The others called her simply "Matron." As if she were the only one who mattered. As if the title belonged to her and her alone. She was old—older than anyone I'd seen in this life. Her skin was like cracked leather, tanned by decades of desert sun. Her eyes seemed to see straight through flesh and bone, through lies and pretenses, through the carefully constructed walls I had built around myself.

She walked with a cane. I suspected she didn't need it. The way she moved suggested a predator at rest—conserving energy, waiting for the moment it mattered. Every step was deliberate. Every gesture was measured. I avoided her. Not because she was cruel. She wasn't. Not because she was unfair. She wasn't that either. But because she watched. The way a hawk watches. The way a shinobi watches. And I had too many secrets to survive that kind of scrutiny.

"You're the quiet one."
The voice came from beside me. I hadn't heard her approach. Hadn't sensed her at all. That scared me more than anything else. I looked up. Matron Yumi stood over me, leaning on her cane, studying me with those ancient eyes. The afternoon sun cast her shadow across the courtyard, long and dark.

"Yes," I said.

"Good." She lowered herself onto a nearby bench with a grunt, her joints creaking like old hinges. "Quiet children survive longer. They learn more. They see more."

I didn't respond. She didn't seem to expect me to.

"My name is Yumi," she said. "You may call me Matron Yumi, or simply Matron. I don't care which."

"Matron Yumi."

She nodded, as if I had passed some unspoken test. "Aiko tells me you're strange. That you watch everything and say nothing. That you practice movements when you think no one is looking." My heart stopped.

"I—"

"Don't lie to me, boy." Her voice was sharp as a blade. "I've been running this orphanage for years. I've seen a great many children pass through these walls. I know when one of them is hiding something."

I said nothing.

She studied me for a long moment. Then she sighed—a sound like wind through dead branches.
"I won't ask what you're hiding. Everyone has secrets. The desert teaches us that." She tapped her cane against the packed earth. "But I will give you some advice, since you seem determined to become a shinobi."

I waited.

"Whatever you're planning—whatever you're preparing for—remember that you're still a child. You have time. Don't waste it trying to grow up too fast."

She stood, her joints creaking. "And eat more. You will still need it." She walked away.
I sat there for a long time, my heart pounding, my mind racing.

She knew.

Not what, exactly. But she knew I was different. That I was preparing for something. That I was hiding something. And she had chosen not to expose me. I didn't know whether to be grateful or terrified.

Aiko was different. Where Matron Yumi was sharp edges and cold observation, Aiko was warmth. She laughed at our antics. Sang us songs. Held us when we cried. She was the closest thing to a mother most of us would ever know. But even Aiko had her limits.

"There are too many of you," she told me once, when I asked why she couldn't play with us after lessons. We were sitting in the courtyard, watching the younger children chase each other through the dust. "I wish I could give each of you everything you need. But I can't." She smiled, but there was sadness in it. A weariness that spoke of years spent stretching herself too thin. "All I can do is teach you to take care of each other." I thought about that for a long time.

The other children didn't. They competed for Aiko's attention—fighting over her lap, her praise, her gentle hands. They didn't understand that she couldn't be everything to everyone. That the math simply didn't work. But I understood. I had always understood.

The dull months of orphanage life passed.

Days blurred into weeks. Weeks into months. The rhythm was always the same—meals, lessons, play, sleep. The desert wind howled outside. The sun traced its path across the sky. Children laughed and fought and cried. I watched. I practiced. I waited.

The head matron called me into her office on a sweltering afternoon. "Sit," she said, gesturing to a cushion. I sat.

The office was small—barely large enough for a desk, two chairs, and a shelf of weathered scrolls. The walls were thick, insulating against the heat. A single window let in a sliver of light. Matron Yumi studied me with the same intensity she'd shown months ago. But there was something different in her gaze now. Calculation, perhaps. Or concern.

"You've been watching the shinobi," she said. "The ones who walk near the orphanage."

I said nothing. "The other children play, argue and cause trouble. You watch."

She leaned forward, her ancient eyes boring into mine. "What are you looking for?"

A way in. A path forward. A future that doesn't end with me dead in a ditch.

"Nothing," I said.

She didn't believe me. I could see it in her eyes. But she didn't press. Instead, she said something that surprised me.

"You want to be a shinobi? That's a tough task for civilians, orphans and the poor." She paused. "At least, it was eight years ago."

I waited.

"The Second Kazekage—may the Sands bless him—has created this new... academy it is called, for becoming shinobi. Anyone who wishes to be shinobi can apply. He is also asking the clans to send their children to the academy."

The Academy.

The word hit me like a physical blow. "The Academy usually accepts children at six years old," she continued. "That's not a hard rule, from the rumors I've heard. I think you will be eligible." My heart stopped.

"The village needs shinobi," she said. "It always needs shinobi. And you..." She paused, studying me, a flicker of greed coming in her eyes.

"You have the eyes of someone who's already decided."

I hadn't decided.

That was the problem. I was still trapped in the same loop—wanting power, fearing the cost. Wanting to become something more, terrified of what I would have to become in the process. But I couldn't say that. So I nodded.

"You will be five years old in the coming months," Matron Yumi said. "I will apply to the Academy for you and you are among the most mature kid in my orphanage even among the bigger ones." And she smiled—a sad, knowing smile that made me feel like I'd been seen in a way I hadn't intended.

I had four months. Four months to decide. The thought was both terrifying and exhilarating. Four months to figure out how to become a shinobi without losing myself in the process. But I think I had already decided. Not that I could hide my strangeness from ninjas if I couldn't hide it from my matrons. Academy teachers would find my oddness in the first moment and file it away or they will try to find the reason. And If I hold back and lagged behind, I would be prodded more and more until I slip and they find about my rebirth. They will try to study, research it. There were many ways Chakra could extend one's life and Rebirth was one of many. If they found out about my reincarnation or even get the hint, Shinobi greed will put me on experiment table, before I could explain anything. I could not allow that. So I have to become strong. And if I were to become something useful, they might overlook my strangeness. A genius. A prodigy. There was precedent for it in the ninja world. And if I was going to be strong, I will be the very best.

After all, the best lies are those that people want to believe themselves. And that are hidden behind truth.
Or so the saying went.

I started pushing harder. Meditation became a daily ritual. I found a secluded corner of the orphanage courtyard—a spot behind a crumbling wall where the shadows pooled thick and the matrons never looked. There, I practiced.

Breathe in. Draw the chakra up from my core. Let it flow through my limbs. Breathe out. Release.

The chakra responded slowly at first—a trickle where I wanted a stream. But each day, the trickle grew. Each day, my control improved. I was still small. Still weak. Still a child in a world that would devour me if I wasn't careful. But I was learning.

That night, I dreamed of sand.
Endless dunes stretching to the horizon. A sky the color of blood. And somewhere in the distance, a figure watching me—eyes like empty sockets, mouth curved into a smile that promised nothing but pain. I woke up gasping. The dream faded, but the feeling remained.
You wanted power, a voice whispered. Now you'll have to earn it.

I woke up and lay in the darkness, listening to the other children breathe. Four more months of peaceful orphanage life that I had somehow gotten used too. It was all I had.

 

[GeomZii]

Rough/unedited Drafts.


The Academy gates loomed before me like the maw of some great beast. Two massive doors of reinforced sandstone, banded with iron. They stood open, welcoming us into a courtyard. I had expected some kind of entrance test, but an instructor had came and only ask gathered children to fill their forms and asked whether we could read, write. He have also observed us for any glaring disability.

Today Hiro, Mido and I have gotten news of our selection. And suddenly,

Celestial Grimoire — 800 CP

Bending Arts (500 CP) — Avatar: The Last Airbender

You were born with the ability to manipulate the element of your nation, and have been trained in its use. The Bending Arts differ from element to element, but always involve a combination of physical movements designed to evoke that element, focused with the will of the Bender. Bending an element provides substantial control over it, allowing you to move it, shape it, and direct it, though the exact nature of each depends on the individual element. It should be noted, however, that you cannot actually create an element – though Firebenders can transform their body heat into a raging inferno and Airbenders can make the breath from their lungs into a gale, Waterbenders and Earthbenders must have a source of their element to Bend. You also get all knowledge of chosen bending art. You are well versed in basic bending and if mastered you could develop it to advance level. You may choose one of four bending arts.

I wanted to choose fire bending. After all, who doesn't want to firebend and it was the most offensive art. But while I can bend it , there might not be enough fire jutsus in suna to better use this perk. Water bending was out due to similar problem and lack of water due to being in desert even though it will help me with healing perk with its healing arts, bloodbending and fluidbending. So Air or Earth. Airbending will help me with most wind jutsus, that suna was famous for. But Earth will give me ability to manipulate earth and later on sand. Perhaps I could bend earth and sand in future like gaara and do Sand Tsunami Jutsu. Also, Second Kazekage is known for his earth release and sand manipulation. Choosing earthbending will allow me to gain environmental advantage atleast within Land of Wind and perhaps recognition from second kazekage. Earthbending it is.

Chosen Bending Arts — Earthbending

Accept?

Yes.

Remaining CP — 300

Suddenly Knowledge and power rush into me. My Chakra reserves expanded, as Chi enters my body and translated into physical energy, Yang energy. Unlike the previous perks, this one has given me knowledge of fighting while using earthbending by manipulating yang chakra. I could feel the earth beneath me. The stonewalls of the dormitory. The packed sand of the courtyard. It called to me, whispered to me, waited for me to reach out and shape it. However, I could not. Not yet, not here. Otherwise if any damage were to happen to orphanage building, Head matron Yumi will give me scolding of my life and and Aiko will be disappointed. I will have to search somewhere isolated for practice.

I now also have idea how Celestial Grimoire works but only idea. Atleast I think, I have. I get CP by doing achievements instead of daily like I previously thought, greater the feat, greater the CP. The Greater achievements also tends to allow Celestial Grimoire to grant a perk. It is only a conjecture.

The morning sun beat down on the assembled children, baking the courtyard until the air shimmered with heat. The desert wind carried the smell of dust and something else—ozone, perhaps, or the faint metallic tang of chakra lingering in the air.

This is it, I thought. No turning back now. My first day of academy.

Aiko came to fetch me as the sun climbed higher. "Kaito! There you are." She stood at the edge of the courtyard, hands on her hips, a fond exasperation in her voice. "I've been looking everywhere. It's time." I rose, brushing dust from my clothes. The orphanage had provided new garments for the occasion—simple brown robes, clean and unpatched. A rare luxury. I had worn worse.

"I'm ready" I said.

Aiko studied me for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then she smiled—that warm, tired smile that had become as familiar as the desert sun. "You look ready," she said. "Come on. The others are waiting."
Hiro and Mido stood by the gate, along with three other orphans who had been deemed old enough for the Academy. Hiro bounced on his heels, barely contained excitement radiating from every pore. Mido stood quietly beside him, his dark eyes watchful. The other three—a girl named Sana and two brothers whose names I hadn't bothered to learn—clustered together, whispering nervously.

"Finally!" Hiro exclaimed when he saw me. "I thought you'd sleep through it!" "I was awake before you," I said.

"Liar."

I didn't bother to argue. Hiro had never learned to read me, and I preferred it that way. Matron Yumi appeared at the gate, leaning on her cane. She had dressed formally for the occasion—a dark robe embroidered with subtle patterns that caught the light. Her presence commanded attention, as it always did.

"You will represent this orphanage with dignity," she said, her old eyes sweeping over us. "You will follow your instructors' orders. You will not embarrass me."

"Yes, Matron Yumi," we chorused.

She nodded, satisfied. Then her gaze found me—lingering, calculating, as it always did. "And most of all survive," she said.

"The Academy teaches you to kill. To lie. To sacrifice everything for the village." Her ancient eyes glittered. "What they don't teach you—what they can't teach you—is how to survive the war that comes after. When the fighting stops and the dust settles. When you're left with nothing but memories and scars." She straightened, tapping her cane against the ground. "Remember that you're human. Whatever else you become. Whatever powers you gain and whatever enemies you make. Remember that you were once a child in an orphanage, crying for his mother."
She turned and walked away, leaving us standing in the dust.

Was that kindness? Or pragmatism? Or greed? Or a mixture of all.

We stood in silence, watching the other children. Some were crying, clutching at their parents' robes. Others stood with arms crossed, trying to look confident. A few—the ones from shinobi clans, judging by their clothes—stood apart, observing the crowd with cold calculation.

Those are the dangerous ones, I realized. They've been training since they could walk. They know what's coming.

I studied them carefully, cataloging faces and postures. A boy with dark eyes and blue hairs. A girl with hair the color of copper, hands already calloused from weapons training. Twins who stood back-to-back, scanning the crowd like they expected an attack.

These will be my competition. My allies or my enemies. I didn't know which yet.

A gong sounded. The noise cut through the murmuring crowd like a blade, silencing every voice. Children straightened. Parents stepped back. Even the wind seemed to pause.

A man stepped onto the platform at the far end of the courtyard.

He was old—ancient by shinobi standards—with a weathered face and eyes that had seen too much. His robes were simple but well-made, the fabric dark against his sun-darkened skin. A headband adorned his forehead, bearing the symbol of Sunagakure. But there was something else etched beneath it. A scar. Old and faded.

"I am Chunin Hara, you will call me Hara sensei," he said. His voice carried without effort, cutting through the heat and dust like a blade through silk. "For the next six years, I will be responsible for turning you into shinobi."

He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. "Some of you will not survive. Some of you will break. Some of you will wash out and return to whatever lives you came from." His gaze swept across the assembled children. "But those who remain—those who endure—will become the finest weapons this village has ever produced."

Weapons.

That was what we were to him. Not children. Not students. Weapons.

"Since we are in ground, we begin immediately," Hara sensei continued. "There will be no orientation. No grace period. You will be tested today, and every day, until you either graduate or fail."
He smiled. It wasn't a kind smile.

"Welcome to the Academy." The first test was simple. We were divided into groups of ten and told to run. No instructions. No destination. Just run. The other children took off immediately—sprinting across the courtyard, competing to be first, to be fastest, to prove themselves. I watched them go.

Then I started running. Not fast. Not slow. A steady pace, chakra pulsing through my legs, my breathing controlled. Hiro and Mido matched my rhythm even though Hiro wanted to sprint, Mido forced him to follow my lead, their footsteps falling in sync with mine. We ran until children started dropping. First the ones who had sprinted too hard. Then the ones who had no stamina. Then the ones who simply gave up. We ran until the sun reached its zenith. We ran until our lungs burned and our legs screamed and our vision blurred at the edges. We ran until Hara sensei called us back. Of the hundred children who started, thirty finished. I was one of them. Hara sensei looked at us—the survivors— nodded and assigned us in different class. "Better than expected," he said. "Now move to your assigned classroom".

We all arrived in our classroom and took our places. The classroom was smaller than I expected. Sandstone walls, narrow windows, rows of low desks worn smooth by generations of students. The air smelled of chalk dust and old paper, with an undertone of sweat that never quite faded no matter how many times the windows were opened. I found a seat near the middle—not the front, where the eager ones clustered, and not the back, where the troublemakers lurked. Hiro dropped into the desk beside me, still breathing hard from the run. Mido took the seat behind us, silent as always. Around us, the other survivors of Hara-sensei's first test filed in our class. Thirty children out of a hundred. The clan kids sat together near the windows, their fine clothes marking them as different. The orphans and civilians scattered throughout the room, eyeing each other with wary suspicion.

Hara-sensei entered last, moving with the quiet precision of a predator. He stood at the front of the room, his weathered face unreadable, and waited for silence.

"You will notice syllabus on your table. It is your curriculum for 6 years in academy." Hara sensei said. I observed syllabus. "You have all received your syllabus," he said, tapping the scroll on his desk. "You will familiarize yourselves with it. You will follow it. You will not question it."

First year- Reading, Writing and calligraphy, Mathematics, geography, General history and ideology of Sand, Taijutsu 101 (lots of physical exercises running and drills) and Introduction to Chakra are all part of the core curriculum

Second year - Rules of the Shinobi, tactics and strategies , basic exercises, taijutsu 102, Theory of chakra, weapons practice, Survival 101 (in desert) and ideology of Sand.

Third year- Basic chakra control, Infiltration and mannerism, History of the Elemental Nations, Basic finance, Report writing, Taijutsu 103, . Bukijutsu and Survival 102

Fourth year- Chakra control, Taijutsu 104, . Bukijutsu, Ninjutsu theory, Arts of Illusions, Intelligence Gathering, Trapping and First aid.

Fifth year- Chakra control, Taijutsu 105, . Bukijutsu, Ninjutsu , Recon and Tracking, Genjutsu, First Aid and Poisons , Survival.

Sixth year- Chakra control, Taijutsu 106, . Bukijutsu, Ninjutsu , Recon and Tracking, Introduction in Sealing, First Aid and Poisons and Survival.

Fifth and Sixth years also has atleast two Electives- Ninjutsu - Elemental Ninjutsu ( mostly Wind style), Fuinjutsu (Scroll making) , Genjutsu, Advance Taijutsu, Bukijutsu and Kenjutsu , Medical Training, Poisons and Antidotes, Recon and Tracking, Intelligence Gathering, Puppetery, Trapping, Mannerisms, Politics and Business.

Mostly Academy focus was on physical conditioning, bringing academy students upto certain standard and teaching standard fighting style with weapons, poison and survival throughout its course.

"It is given to you as some of you already knows some subjects." Hara sensei looked towards clan kids. "If you perform well you may be allowed to skip class. The syllabus may also change according to time and need." Hara sensei warned.

His gaze swept the room, lingering on the clan children. "Some of you believe you already know what it means to be shinobi. You have been trained by your families. You have learned techniques and forms that other children have not." He paused. "You are wrong. Whatever you think you know, you know nothing. The Academy will teach you the truth."

The clan children stiffened. A few looked angry. None spoke. Smart, I thought. He is establishing dominance. Testing them. Seeing who will break first.

The Academy settled into a rhythm.

Mornings were for reading, writing, and calligraphy. Afternoons were for mathematics, geography, and history. Evenings were for taijutsu and chakra exercises.

I fell into the pattern easily, my body and mind adapting to the demands. I was not the best in the class—that distinction belonged to a clan boy named Katsuro, whose calligraphy was flawless and whose taijutsu forms were sharp as blades. I was not the worst—that dubious honor went to a civilian boy named Taro, who had already been pulled aside by instructors for extra help.

My performance in Physical exercises was better than other children except clan kids and I was improving. But theory was where I excel only behind Gamon, blue haired boy and Katsuro. But I cataloged every detail—the instructors' habits, the students' weaknesses, the subtle hierarchies forming within the class. Hiro had found his place among the energetic ones, always volunteering, always pushing himself. Mido had found his among the quiet ones, observing more than participating, his dark eyes missing nothing.

And the clan children? They kept to themselves, speaking in whispers, practicing techniques they had learned before the Academy. They thought they were better than us. Maybe they were. But blood and lineage weren't everything. The desert didn't care about clan names or family techniques. It only cared about survival.

 

[DivyanshKundu]

According to the head matron and the priestess of the sands, Sunagakure had been the world's first true shinobi village. Its creation had supposedly brought an end to humanity's age of endless violence and ushered in an era of enlightenment.

Click to shrink...

Lol. Lmao even.

The Villages got established because Madara and Hashirama decided to create Konoha. And they were so powerful that the rest of the world had to follow suit.

"The Second Kazekage—may the Sands bless him—has created this new... academy its called, for becoming shinobi. Anyone who wishes to be shinobi can apply. He is also asking the clans to send their children to the academy."

Click to shrink...

Lmao.

Second Kazekage plagiarising Tobirama's ideas and calling them his own. This is advanced bullshitery at its finest. The MC doesn't have enough inner sarcasm to point this out lol.

Instead, I said: "To be strong?"

She smiled. "To survive."

Click to shrink...

See. This is why Suna is the Weakest Great Village.

This mindset itself is problematic. What do you mean you tell your kids that survival is more important than becoming strong? This is the thinking of the weak. Not prodigies. This is why Suna never produced a Shinobi of note except for Gaara and Sasori.

It's truly the village of the Bums. Third Kazekage was called the 'Strongest Kazekage' and he got taken out by Sasori. The same Sasori who was taken out by early Shippuden Sakura even if he held back a little.

However, I could not. Not yet. Not here.

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...I mean - he should show it as fast as he can. It's sealless Earth release. It's a strong bloodline. Suna doesn't have experimental bullshit nor any hate campaign against Shinobi clans. So a new bloodline would actually net him a lot of benefits.

"You will familiarize yourselves with it. You will follow it. You will not question it."

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This is why Suna only has bums. Third Kazekage got taken out by Sasori (a village genius). Rasa by Orochimaru(his partner for the Konoha Crush plan). Pakura by Mist Shinobi as her own village betrayed her.

Come to think of it - Suna really does have a tradition of it's only relatively strong Shinobi getting killed by betrayal lol.

The clan children stiffened. A few looked angry. None spoke. Smart, I thought. He is establishing dominance. Testing them. Seeing who will break first.

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Well. Suna doesn't have any strong clans to begin with. So even a Chunin can establish dominance over these clan children. I get the logic.

 

[Heavenly Mark]

Nice

 

[Turncoat]

I'm interested, though we'll see where it goes. There's spots where an editing pass definitely would have benefited it. Or a beta reader. But I am not opposed to reading a few more chapters.

 

[Ahzura Twilight]

...I mean - he should show it as fast as he can. It's sealless Earth release. It's a strong bloodline. Suna doesn't have experimental bullshit nor any hate campaign against Shinobi clans. So a new bloodline would actually net him a lot of benefits.

Click to shrink...

Plus it would keep him from being as expendable no
It's easier throwing away a stick as opposed to a sword shaped stick

 

[Vanta Mk.XII]

Earth bending in a place filled with so much sand. That's just ideal lmao.

 

[Starman25]

Bending Arts (500 CP) — Avatar: The Last Airbender

You were born with the ability to manipulate the element of your nation, and have been trained in its use. The Bending Arts differ from element to element, but always involve a combination of physical movements designed to evoke that element, focused with the will of the Bender. Bending an element provides substantial control over it, allowing you to move it, shape it, and direct it, though the exact nature of each depends on the individual element. It should be noted, however, that you cannot actually create an element – though Firebenders can transform their body heat into a raging inferno and Airbenders can make the breath from their lungs into a gale, Waterbenders and Earthbenders must have a source of their element to Bend. You also get all knowledge of chosen bending art. You are well versed in basic bending and if mastered you could develop it to advance level.

Click to shrink...

The cost of bending is really high, but the Legend of Aang version makes sense—since it was only in The Legend of Korra that they nerfed earthbending by claiming it only works on metal impurities (to explain how metal cars could escape police officers who bend iron).
And since the MC has a talent for healing, I wonder if he'll be able to heal using earthbending.

 

[GeomZii]

I'm interested, though we'll see where it goes. There's spots where an editing pass definitely would have benefited it. Or a beta reader. But I am not opposed to reading a few more chapters.

Click to shrink...

Me too.
I am posting as I write. Lmao

 

[GeomZii]

The cost of bending is really high, but the Legend of Aang version makes sense—since it was only in The Legend of Korra that they nerfed earthbending by claiming it only works on metal impurities (to explain how metal cars could escape police officers who bend iron).
And since the MC has a talent for healing, I wonder if he'll be able to heal using earthbending.

Click to shrink...

Active perks will have more cost. Plus years of knowledge of earthbending has its own worth, the katas, the fighting style earth bender use while earth bending (not martial arts).
Have not watch Legend of Korea , so can't comment on that.

 

[GeomZii]

Plus it would keep him from being as expendable no
It's easier throwing away a stick as opposed to a sword shaped stick

Click to shrink...

Yes he will do it.

 

[GeomZii]

Suna doesn't have any strong clans to begin with

Click to shrink...

It is known first kazekage uniting warring clans in land of wind. While canon doesn't mention them , I will try to create some OC Clans.

 

[Starman25]

The Village of Sand has its own version of the Eight Inner Gates:
The Seven Heavens Breathing Method.
The only problem is that this technique is much newer than the Eight Gates.

 

[DivyanshKundu]

It is known first kazekage uniting warring clans in land of wind. While canon doesn't mention them , I will try to create some OC Clans.

Click to shrink...

Eh. I feel like that's a problem way too stories have - trying to make the weak powerful because the main story didn't show a particular faction having anyone strong.

Canon Suna, by Naruto's time or even in Minato's era, didn't have any powerful clan Shinobi. Including extra clans in your world building will just be a lot of extra work to fit in stuff that doesn't really matter.

Around this time period, Chio and Ebizo should be the Head Shinobi after the Kazekage. They should be in their prime right now.

Clans wouldn't add much to the story because if you add some clan character that becomes a major part of the story, you'll have to show why no powerful ninja ever came out of their clan.

I feel like having Shinobi who don't have any Kekkei Genkai be the core of Suna is more interesting.

 

[GeomZii]

Eh. I feel like that's a problem way too stories have - trying to make the weak powerful because the main story didn't show a particular faction having anyone strong.

Canon Suna, by Naruto's time or even in Minato's era, didn't have any powerful clan Shinobi. Including extra clans in your world building will just be a lot of extra work to fit in stuff that doesn't really matter.

Around this time period, Chio and Ebizo should be the Head Shinobi after the Kazekage. They should be in their prime right now.

Clans wouldn't add much to the story because if you add some clan character that becomes a major part of the story, you'll have to show why no powerful ninja ever came out of their clan.

I feel like having Shinobi who don't have any Kekkei Genkai be the core of Suna is more interesting.

Click to shrink...

There many ways showing clans without showing them powerful. I have some ideas, will see how that works.
I will follow all canon strength and weakness including timeline from tumblr Naruto timeline. If you feel any changes, try to point it out. Any and all changes will be result of si making waves or Tsunamis.
OC Clans will somehow fit canon more or less.
Having clans is different from having powerful clans.

 

[Aadarm]

I've never understood why these reincarnates always think they are going to hide things and fool everyone when they live in villages of professional spies, information gatherers, interrogators and assassins.

 

[GeomZii]

I've never understood why these reincarnates always think they are going to hide things and fool everyone when they live in villages of professional spies, information gatherers, interrogators and assassins.

Click to shrink...

Yes me too. But it's about human nature. Usually that's the first thought of humans in unexpected situation.

 

[DivyanshKundu]

Having clans is different from having powerful clans.

Click to shrink...

Fair enough.

Yes me too. But it's about human nature. Usually that's the first thought of humans in unexpected situation.

Click to shrink...

Yeah. Normal(ish) people really don't want to assume they are completely helpless in regards to their agency. So they fool themselves into thinking the situation is less hopeless than it seems.

Also, power level wise, Naruto has a pretty easily quantifiable scaling unlike some other verses where Feats and power levels contradict too much.

Genin - Chunin - Special Jonin (specially promoted due to some exceptional quality) - Jonin - Elite Jonin (Baki in Suna, Darui in Kumo, Early-Naruto Kakashi, Zabuza, etc) - Kage (Sasori, Hiruzen at the end of his life and Early Shippuden Sakura should fit here) - Strong Kage (Ay, Bee, Minato, Jiraiya, Itachi Uchiha without Izanami bullshit etc) - Super Kage threshold (Pain) - Super Kage peak (Madara, Toneri, Hashirama) - Six Paths level

Konoha genuinely is the center of the world. They keep churning out Strong Kage Tier fighters every generation.

There is a wide range of difference in Strong Kage Tier simply because of the fighters in the running have different kind of focuses. Still, I would say that Minato Namikaze is the Peak of what you can achieve if you aren't someone blessed by Bloodline in this world.

This world is the Legend of Eyes lol. Mangekyo Sharingan, Rinnegan, Tenseigan. Those are the proper way of getting to Super Kage Tier unless you are an Asura Reincarnation like Naruto and Hashirama. Or if you become the Ten Tails Jinchuriki.

At Super Kage Tier, you can take on an Entire Great Village alone and win. At Six Paths level, your vitality is bullshit as fuck. Madara regenerated to his Peak after Gai's final attack. And Obito survived so much fucking bullshit thrown at him before he finally croaked.

 

[GeomZii]

Fair enough.



Yeah. Normal(ish) people really don't want to assume they are completely helpless in regards to their agency. So they fool themselves into thinking the situation is less hopeless than it seems.

Also, power level wise, Naruto has a pretty easily quantifiable scaling unlike some other verses where Feats and power levels contradict too much.

Genin - Chunin - Special Jonin (specially promoted due to some exceptional quality) - Jonin - Elite Jonin (Baki in Suna, Darui in Kumo, Early-Naruto Kakashi, Zabuza, etc) - Kage (Sasori, Hiruzen at the end of his life and Early Shippuden Sakura should fit here) - Strong Kage (Ay, Bee, Minato, Jiraiya, Itachi Uchiha without Izanami bullshit etc) - Super Kage threshold (Pain) - Super Kage peak (Madara, Toneri, Hashirama) - Six Paths level

Konoha genuinely is the center of the world. They keep churning out Strong Kage Tier fighters every generation.

There is a wide range of difference in Strong Kage Tier simply because of the fighters in the running have different kind of focuses. Still, I would say that Minato Namikaze is the Peak of what you can achieve if you aren't someone blessed by Bloodline in this world.

This world is the Legend of Eyes lol. Mangekyo Sharingan, Rinnegan, Tenseigan. Those are the proper way of getting to Super Kage Tier unless you are an Asura Reincarnation like Naruto and Hashirama. Or if you become the Ten Tails Jinchuriki.

At Super Kage Tier, you can take on an Entire Great Village alone and win. At Six Paths level, your vitality is bullshit as fuck. Madara regenerated to his Peak after Gai's final attack. And Obito survived so much fucking bullshit thrown at him before he finally croaked.

Click to shrink...

Ofcourse, konoha wars with all other 4 villages simultaneously proved konoha strength. But konoha also have lead in creating many institutions. That lead over years transform in battlefield advantages. That is apart from being in fertile land, supporting daimyo and prodigies that props like weeds.
Yes chakra system is one of most detailed power system with all its nuainces.
Si will not be lagging behind in cheats or bloodlines, due to Celestial Grimoire, atleast you can be sure of that.

 

[GeomZii]

I've never understood why these reincarnates always think they are going to hide things and fool everyone when they live in villages of professional spies, information gatherers, interrogators and assassins.

Click to shrink...

Yeah. Normal(ish) people really don't want to assume they are completely helpless in regards to their agency. So they fool themselves into thinking the situation is less hopeless than it seems.

Click to shrink...

It's all about turning back into child. Trauma of death, rebirth, years of being helpless baby, and weak and small child body only reinforce idea of hiding untill they realise in a ninja village it's a fruitless endeavour.

 

[DivyanshKundu]

Hmm. For Waifus, Tsunade should be around his age as far as I remember. The Sannin gained their fame after being defeated by Hanzo in Ame.

So, maybe a few years older than our MC?

Well, the relationship can work out if the MC is groomed as the next Kazekage and vies for peaceful relations with Konoha.

Other than Tsunade, I don't remember any other viable Waifu in his age range unless the story only goes with romance in the very final stages.

 

[slightbug]

Can earthbenders bend sand? It's been a while since I watched Avatar, and I remember an episode of them in the desert.

 

[GeomZii]

Can earthbenders bend sand? It's been a while since I watched Avatar, and I remember an episode of them in the desert.

Click to shrink...

Earth, sand, mud, clay, crystals etc.
In advance level any form of earth mineral, Lava, Metal etc.

 

[search]

The Sand religion makes as much sense as the village with a leaf emblem having the Will of Fire. Sand doesn't nurture, stupid ninjas…

 

[GeomZii]

The Sand religion makes as much sense as the village with a leaf emblem having the Will of Fire. Sand doesn't nurture, stupid ninjas…

Click to shrink...

Hey, earth history is full of humans searching hope and believing in any religion, ideology, culture no matter how stupid it is from modern lens.
Plus it's propaganda like will of fire. And there are monks in Naruto who worship some sort of deity.

 

[Dimensionist]

I find it deeply ironic that when choosing between Air and Earth, in a literal desert (meaning sand everywhere, that even a genius earthbender like Toph had to work hard to control) in the Land of Wind (and a place that has a clear legacy for Futon ninjutsu as seen with Temari), the MC chose Earth.