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.

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[GeomZii]

Celestial Sandstorm

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 2: Tier Four ___________________________________________________________________


Kaito POV

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 Ninja villages, which was associated with wind techniques, puppeteers, poisons, and assassins that barely met the standards of other great villages. 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 Konoha was, disposable enemies, and antagonists. 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. Their Kage leader could be easily defeated by even the Jounins and Sanins of other villages. The first two Kazekage died from assassins; the third Kazekage was killed by their own Jounin-level puppeteer at the time. The fourth Kazekage, Rasa, was killed by Orochimaru. Even Gaara, who was a Jinchuriki after becoming Kazekage, was killed by Missing Ninjas. Hell, even their own Daimyo, whose military Sunagakure was supposed to be, abandoned it. Again and again, they had to be saved by the heroes.

And now that the war had begun, Sunagakure would bleed; its shinobi would die; Its orphans would become soldiers. And I, a child of two years with the soul of a man, would be swept up in the tide. Who would care if provisions in the orphanage emptied, when the very village was in the war that was supposed to be equivalent to a world war?
And if the war was coming for me, then I needed to be ready.

I opened my eyes and made my choice.

The sand may remember. But it has never met anyone like me.


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Technology in the Naruto world had progressed in some areas but fell behind in others. It resembled medieval Japan, so I had believed I had been born into some distant feudal era. We had electricity, light bulbs, but no firearms or vehicles. I had not seen communication devices like radios; indoor plumbing existed only in rumors only as a super luxurious commodity. As far as I could tell, civilization had progressed a respectable distance. From the scraps of information I could gather and my own knowledge of the world, civilization has diverged and gone off on tangents in many sectors, presumably because of the presence of mystical energy. Most of the Earth's technological inventions and machinery roots were in warfare. Chakra has fulfilled that role, halting progress in military, communication, and many similar sectors.

Before the war, my caretaker used to hum softly while rocking me back and forth, the gentle rhythm gradually lulling me into peaceful sleep. Then everything changed. The world decided it had had enough of peace and descended into chaos. Skirmish followed skirmish, and battle followed battle. The unfamiliar insignia of Sunagakure began appearing with increasing frequency. The headbands became common.


One thing I came to know is how inhumane a ninja village can be. Sunagakure's wartime rationing is a masterclass in bureaucratic cruelty. The system is tiered, and every citizen is assigned a category based on their "contribution" to the war effort. Tier One are Active Shinobi who get Full rations and full access to clean water. Even whatever quality meat, grains, dried fruits, and whatever imported goods remain are available to them. These are the men and women who bleed for the village, and the village ensures they have the strength to keep bleeding. Tier Two are the Shinobi Support Personnel who get two-thirds rations, and two-thirds the amount of clean water. These include medics, weaponsmiths, intelligence analysts, and administrative staff. They don't actively fight, but they keep the war machine running. They get enough to function, not enough to thrive.
Next were the Tier Three, which include the Civilian Workers. They rarely get quarter rations. Laborers, farmers, and construction crews fall in this category. They are essential but replaceable. The village needs their hands, but they can get by with quarter rations and about half the amount of water, though it was from old wells.
Lastly, we, the Orphans, along with the Elderly and the Infirm, fall into Tier Four. We barely got any rations from the village and had to search abandoned wells that are usually contaminated, even drains, for water. We got by on any rations we got in the market, where merchants profited by charging very high prices. The village has no use for those who cannot work, fight, or breed future soldiers. They are a drain on resources, a burden on the collective. They are given just enough to barely survive and nothing more.
The orphanage falls into Tier Four. It always had, but before the war, Tier Four still received occasional donations from wealthy merchants, religious offerings from the desert faith, and surplus from the Kazekage's discretionary fund. The war dried up all three.
Before the war, the orphanage was poor but functional. The children received two meals a day, thin gruel in the morning, flatbread and dried dates in the evening. Meat appeared once a week, usually in the form of tough, stringy goat that had been boiled into submission. Vegetables were rare, imported from the few oases that could grow them, and often wilted by the time they arrived.
The first sign I noticed of change in meals was the bread. The flatbread that used to be made from actual wheat flour was now cut with sand-dusted barley and ground millet. Then weekly goat meat disappeared. In its place was a thin broth made from bones that had been boiled three times already, until there was nothing left but the memory of flavor.
By the sixth month of the war, the orphanage's food supply had been cut in half. The children's bodies adapted in the way starving bodies do. They slowed down, slept more. They stopped playing games that required energy. The youngest ones cried constantly, their thin wails echoing through the dormitories until they exhausted themselves into silence. After that, children began disappearing. Some went to pseudo-hospitals like wind temples infirmaries or sand shrines dispensary, where they died of malnutrition and disease; others were taken by shinobi recruiters, and the rest went who knows where.
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 attention seemed like an exceptionally poor survival strategy.

Unfortunately, I was beginning to suspect that avoiding notice wouldn't necessarily save me. Not that Hiro, who follows me along with Mido, would allow me any silence. We three were of the same age group, with me one year younger, and were raised together, that have created a sort of bond between us. Sure, there are bigger kids, but they spent most of their time outside, where they usually played in the past. Hiro and Mido are about a year older than me, yet they had started following me. Hiro is the loudest baby in the orphanage. He was also energetic and active. Mido, the baby girl, was quiet and shy. And then there was me.
Hiro is the kid who fills every silence, and I thought it was because perhaps silence frightens him. He was impossible to ignore.
He had a laugh that echoed off the sandstone walls, a grin that never seemed to fade, and a habit of asking questions no one wanted to answer.



Why do the matrons lock the kitchen at night? Why do some kids go? Why is the sky orange sometimes?



He asked because he was curious. After all, he was three and a half years old, and the world was a puzzle he was determined to solve.

Other kids thought he was stupid, but he merely played the fool because fools are safe. No one expects anything from the fools.



Or I was looking too much into it.



He is also fiercely loyal in a way that embarrasses me. He'd never say it aloud, but he'd take a beating for me or Mido without hesitation. He just wouldn't stop talking about it afterward.

The older orphans had grown meaner since the war started. Hunger stripped away patience and any kindness, leaving only the sharp edge of survival.

One of them, a boy named Jiro, had taken to cornering the younger children in the courtyard, demanding whatever scraps they'd hidden away.



Heh, Jiro.

Matron Aiko told me orphanages usually gave such simple names like Hiro, Mido, and Jiro to orphans with no names.



Most of the children gave in. It was easier than fighting.

I was prepared to give in too, as I had nothing hidden. The Nutrition perk meant I could survive on less, which meant I had less to hide, and I was ready to play the part of the scared toddler. It was safer than fighting back.

Then Hiro stepped in front of me.

"Leave him alone," he said, his voice steadier than I'd ever heard it.

Jiro laughed. "What are you going to do, weakling?"

"Matron Yumi, Matron Aiko, Jiro-Jiro, stealing from younger kids." Hiro started shouting in broken sentences.

"Keep quiet."

"Go away, I-tell."

Jiro's fists clenched, but Hiro didn't flinch. I could see his hands shaking and trembling at his sides, but his feet were planted, his chin up, his eyes locked on Jiro's.



He's scared, I realized, and terrified. And yet he's still standing there.



Jiro shoved him. Hiro stumbled back but didn't fall. He didn't fight back; he couldn't; Jiro was twice his size, but he didn't run either.

"If you-do-it-again," Hiro said, his voice cracking, "I'll-tell. Then-you-on-latrine duty."

Jiro glared at him for a long moment. Then he spat on the ground and walked away.

Hiro turned to me. The grin was back, wider than ever, but his hands were still shaking.

"See?" he said. "Hiro, protect you."



Idiot, I thought. I don't need protection.



"Thank you," I said quietly.

Hiro shrugged. "What-friends-for?"



Don't get attached. I remind myself.



But it was already too late. I did not know when I had come to see him as a brother.

___________________________________________________________________



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 in the 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. No, I would even go beyond that. I would just have to compromise the very morals I held previously, 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 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 if my reincarnation had messed something up. Then, about seven months after the war started, when I was two and seven months old, I finally felt a tiny flicker. Barely a spark that I thought, it was my imagination. Something deep inside me that responded when I reached toward it.

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



Choose Art—


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 the battlefield and war as much as possible. It would 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 remembered from school and searched online, the possibilities were countless, making it difficult to ignore choosing healing art. In the end, it came down to being the person who is hardest to kill, and the person the village can't afford to lose. So, I chose healing.



Chosen Art — Healing

Accept?

Yes.

Remaining CP — 750



I waited and experienced no change in myself. Looks like the perk provided me with no knowledge, only talent.



Guess it will only show itself when I start learning Healing arts.



__________________________________________________________________________________________

 

[GeomZii]

Celestial Sandstorm

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 3: Sand Grain ___________________________________________________________________



Kaito POV



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 its creation, money was circulating with purpose. War seemed at least good in that aspect, as Suna economy transformed into a wartime economy.

The orphanage rhythm had changed due to war; every task was finished in half the time. Mornings were for feeding, midday was for lessons, evenings were for bathing and feeding, and at night time we went to bed. Between those markers, the matrons moved like clockwork, efficient, unhurried, their hands never still. There were four of them.



I didn't trust adults.



That was rule two. Don't trust anyone. But Aiko made it hard.

She was the one who held me when I cried, not that I cried much. I'd learned early that crying drew attention, and attention was dangerous. But sometimes the body betrayed me and the infant reflexes kicked in, and the tears came anyway, and Aiko was always there. She'd scoop me up, press me against her shoulder, and hum that melody I couldn't quite place. She smelled of sandalwood and clean linen. It was a simple thing, but it stuck with me. In a world of sand, sweat, and dust, Aiko smelled like something clean and felt safe.

She was young for a matron. Early twenties, maybe. Old enough to have seen things, young enough to still care. I watched her sometimes, when she thought no one was looking. She'd sit by the window, staring out at the dunes, and her face would go still like she was holding something inside that she couldn't let out.

I never asked what it was, as I was only three years old.

Three-year-olds don't ask those kinds of questions.



The way she'd shake herself and smile and go back to being Aiko, the matron who laughed easily and called me sand grain and never once looked at me like I was a burden.

She was the one who taught me the stretching games and the clapping games. She was responsible for taking care of kids, especially younger ones and babies. She also looked after all the orphans when other matrons had work to do. It was her duty to stay in the orphanage and take care of it.

I watched her with the youngest orphans who arrived recently, especially the babies who couldn't walk or talk yet. She was patient with them. She'd sit for hours, rocking a fussy infant, humming that same melody, her eyes half-closed. She never complained or sighed.



Why do I feel jealous, seeing her with other babies?



She was the closest thing I had to a mother in this life.

I didn't want to get attached. I told myself many times. But every time she picked me up, hummed that melody, and called me sand grain with that little smile, something in my chest cracked a little more.



The second Matron, Mira, even scared me, unlike the cold head-matron, who scared me with her calculating eyes. Instead, I was afraid of her because I couldn't read her. She had a scar on her neck. A thin, pale line that disappeared into her collar. A blade wound, maybe, or something worse.

She rarely spoke above a whisper. She was a strict and silent type, the kind who commands the room with silence. Reminded me of my Principal.



The other children avoided her. She felt distant deliberately, like a wall built brick by brick over years.

I couldn't help but watch her. She was a puzzle, and puzzles were the only thing that kept my mind occupied in a world that lacked entertainment.

She handled the older orphans who had grown up but not gotten adopted. The kids, barely past ten years old, had yet to find any job, contributing child labour in Sunagakure. She trained them in practical skills like how to forage, how to defend themselves with nothing but their hands. She taught them survival skills to prepare them for moving out and searching for jobs.

I pieced together the fragments of conversation that drifted through the orphanage, and she was also the one who bought the provisions. Mira left before dawn and returned before noon with a satchel that was always full. Even though the availability of food, cloth, and medicine was scarce. Mira made it happen.

When she returned from the market, I tried to observe her one time and followed her into the orphanage before she stopped and turned.

"I know you're there," she whispered.

I froze.

She looked tired.

"Go back to the Aiko," she said in a tone that brooks no resistance.

I nodded and ran.



The Third Matron, Sayuki, was the easiest to love.

She was old. Probably in her late forties or early fifties. She had a round face, a warm smile, and hands that never stopped moving. She cooked the meals and cleaned the dormitories and mended the torn clothing. She pretended not to notice when children stole extra bread.

She moved through the kitchen with steady hands despite the tremor in her breathing. I watched the way she smiled at the children, warm and genuine, even when she was exhausted. I watched the way she slipped extra portions to the smallest ones, the ones who needed it most.

She gave me extra bread once. I'd been sitting in the corner, pretending to eat, actually pushing my food around the bowl. She'd noticed.

"You're too thin, little one," she pressed a piece of bread into my hand. "Eat."

I ate because she was watching, and refusing would have hurt her. Because she had so little, and she gave it anyway. It showed her heart.

I learned later that she'd been skipping meals. That she'd been giving her own rations to the children.

She also trained kids how to start a fire, how to mend clothes, and how to cook a meal.



Old Yumi was the coldest Matron.

She was oldest in her sixties and yet had the strength and vigor of youth. Her face was full of wrinkles, making some kind of design; her hair white, her eyes dark and sharp. She walked with a cane, but her back was straight. Her voice was a rasp, but it carried.



She was the head matron. The one who handled the finances; she visited the merchants and the priests, asking for donations. The one who gave the sermons about the sand and the desert and the Kazekage.

And after all this time I was beginning to doubt that she really believed them. Perhaps she did it to appeal to the piety of the rich and make it easy to ask for donations.

I saw her once, late at night. I'd woken from a nightmare. I'd slipped out of the dormitory, looking for water or air, looking for anything to ground me.

And I found her.

She was sitting in the courtyard, alone, staring up at the stars. Her cane was on the ground beside her. Her hands were folded in her lap.

She scolded me, "You again. Go back to sleep."



_____________________________________________________________________________________



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 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 to me. 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 walk 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."



Sand grain. A common nickname used to call little kids affectionately.


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, my sand grain," 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, and required precise timing and coordination.

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

I watched the other children struggle, 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: hand seals. The foundation of ninjutsu, hidden in plain sight as children's games.



I started practicing 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, which was not wrong. But I tried to mix in with the kids as much as possible.

The yoga-like stretching sessions became my favorite part of the day. I also enjoyed them in a way. And 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- prac….tice."

"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: " I-strong?"

Aiko 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 practiced using chakra exercises, but only internally, and only when I was alone, as kids here 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, and 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 bread's getting smaller," Mido whispered to me one night, her voice barely audible over the wind.

"What- -you-mean?"

"Last week, each loaf was this big." She held her hands apart. "Now it's this big." She brought them closer. "The matrons aren't reducing portions but – reducing loaves and hoping we won't notice. I kept a tally in my head "

I had noticed. Even when I'd been too focused on my chakra training, too consumed with the Celestial Grimoire, and too busy planning for the future. And so did Mido, and she told me that every morning, she counted the bowls of gruel. Every evening she counted the loaves of bread the matrons brought from the kitchen. She knew how many children were in the orphanage, which ones ate less, which ones ate more, which ones stole from others when they thought no one was looking. She even knew the names of all the kids in the orphanage.

"Why-you-telling-me?" I asked.

She looked at me for a few seconds straight, and for a moment, I felt like she could see straight through my skin, straight through the mask I'd been wearing since the day I woke up in this world.

"Because you are intelligent too," she said. "You just pretend you are not."

My heart stopped.

"I-am? "

"Yes, you are." She tilted her head. "You watch everyone and rarely say anything. You're like me, but different."

Different how?

She didn't answer. She just lay back on her mat and closed her eyes.

"Goodnight, Kaito."

I lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, wondering if I'd just been discovered.



__________________________________________________________________________________________



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 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 for that. 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 and write recently. And slowly, cautiously, I began preparing for the future.



_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

[GeomZii]

Celestial Sandstorm

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 4: After the Sand Settles


Kaito POV

The orphanage received new children in the weeks after the war. That was the first sign for me that the fighting had stopped. The matrons smiled more; the children, too young to understand what war truly meant, played games in the alleys and pretended to be heroes returning from battle. Orphanage schedules changed, and restrictions on food, water, and curfew loosened.

Outside, the end of the war brought a flood of injured people and amputees. The war was perhaps tougher on civilians, as it was back on Earth. The village celebrated in the form of various festivals in the streets, offerings at the sand shrines, wind temples, and the Kazekage gave a speech about the dawn of a new era. The civilian adults smiled more, trying to forget the dead that did not come back.

The ones who had returned had eyes older than their bodies, hollowed out by things they had seen and done. Some walked with limps, and some had missing limbs, their sleeves and pant legs pinned or empty. Many wore bandages or turban-like cloths around head hiding the injury scars or missing eyes, that covered wounds that would never fully heal. And some simply stared at nothing, their minds trapped in battles that had already ended.

Survivor's guilt, I thought. PTSD. The clinical terms from my previous life felt inadequate. They were just words to me. And words could not capture the reality of what these men and women carried inside them.



__________________________________________________________________________________________



"When will we be allowed to go out like other kids?" The question had been burning inside me for months.

Hiro and Mido were standing beside me quietly.

Sure, we went out with the matrons, but only around the orphanage; we were not allowed to play outside like bigger kids. The war has changed the schedule directly and indirectly, but now that the war has ended and I turned four years old, I was eager to explore outside.


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, sand grain?"

I shrugged, not trusting myself to speak. The truth was I wanted to see the village and to map its streets and 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, her short legs pumping furiously to keep up. I simply walked at my own pace.

It always amazed me how carelessly the adults spoke of war and its effects, in front of children.



The war ended; now there will be fewer restrictions; and orphans will be given more freedom.


As if war were a season or an event, 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. Or perhaps that was done to inform kids about the truth of the world they reside in and make them cautious.



__________________________________________________________________________________________



She took us three to the central village.

"The village is calm now. The recent sandstorm had been light." Aiko told them.

People gathered around their houses wore long white tunics and undershirts and white leather sandals. They were cleaning the accumulated sand.

"Look at that tall building." Aiko pointed out

Sandstone buildings rose from the desert floor like natural formations, their edges smoothed by wind and time.

"These houses are designed with curved, roofed alleyways in such a way that they stop gusts of desert sand from blowing inside and also provide shade to keep temperatures down."

Hiro pointed out. "Whoa, what is that tall building?"

"They are called Chimneys that rich houses have. They capture cooler air and funnel it down, providing cool natural air." Aiko replied, and I could see Mido listening with focus.

We saw Off-duty Shinobi move through the streets with quiet purpose.



"What are those people wearing?" Mido asked when we entered the market.

Following her finger, I saw merchants hawking their wares.

"Those are merchants, and they are wearing gandouras. Nomads and travelers usually wear wide, breezy tunics. Their head wraps, Lithams, are larger than the head wraps of people who reside within the village. Look at those animals; they are camels. Merchants and caravans travelled the whole desert on them," Aiko answered before Hiro could ask about them. He was excited to see the animals.



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 their way in. Even in the calmest period, when the wind slowed down, it was still felt inside the village.


That's why, I realized. The wind defines this place. It shapes everything: the people, buildings, and the way they think. The Wind, desert, and climate didn't care about walls or the people who reside in it.



"Let's return," Aiko ordered us. On our return, we took a different route. We saw a large house complex that even had some desert plants.



"Those are Cactus, and that tree is a date palm tree. That funny-looking one is Acacia. The Clans grow and maintain these trees."



"Matron Aiko, where does water come from for these trees? The wells don't have much water." I asked, unable to hold my curiosity. Mido looked at me like I was a fool.



"Oh, silly, the village is built on an oasis. All the water in Suna, whether in wells, drains, or in the market, comes from Oasis. Hmm, Oasis is a big lake of water."



"Oasis! I want to see Oasis," Hiro excitedly said



"Oasis is under the protection of the Kazekage. Also, it is mostly located underground, so we can't visit it."



Hiro looked dejected.



Of course, such a large village in the middle of the desert with no rain can only survive upon an oasis.



How can I be such a fool?



But there was no mention of an oasis in anime, or it is another thing; this world is different. No, more like it was not related to anime, so it was not mentioned, like the other continents which were not shown.



Aiko took us out more often after that.


After the end of the war, markets have started prospering again. Most of the trade here came from Southern and Eastern cities and towns of the Land of Wind. The merchants were a revelation, the rich ones wearing bizarre clothing that offended my modern urban mindset. I had assumed, like my previous life's understanding of economics, that commerce here too followed predictable patterns. Supply and demand, visible inventory, and 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 down in the bags on camels' backs. And Camels were guarded by silent men with sharp eyes. They were the most valuable possession of the merchant. Owning one was the sign of status. After all, if a camel died, they would be stranded in the desert and would have to give a huge amount of money to the Camel guilds to transport and sell their wares.



Cheap goods like fabrics, food, and simple tools remained on display in a makeshift shop. 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, and the merchant nodded. They disappeared into the back of the stall, where camels were guarded by guards. 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 if it was the 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.



It was similar to why ninjas always followed Daimyo when they had the power. The truth was the manpower difference. The ninjas numbered in the thousands, while even smaller nations have populations in the millions. Daimyos had standing samurai and other guards numbering in the thousands themselves, which was enough to hold off any ninja rebellion for long enough to call for reinforcements and even other shinobi of different nations.

The Allied Shinobi Forces united in the Fourth Great Shinobi War had a total active and support force comprising ninja from the Five Great Shinobi Nations, reaching approximately 80,000 personnel, that too after including samurai from the Land of Iron.



After all, the phrase "quantity is a quality of its own" was true even in this world.



The winters were different in the Suna. Although days were pleasant and mild, nights frequently dropped near chilling temperatures. We covered ourselves with old, discarded thick woolen blankets over layered rugs. Some of us even had to sleep in the basement on particularly chilly nights.

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 walked with a cane. I suspected she didn't need it.

I avoided her. Not because she was cruel. She wasn't cruel or unfair to kids, cold, perhaps. She wasn't, at least to us. 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."

I didn't respond, and 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 rarely speak. That you practice movements when you think no one is looking." My heart stopped.

"I- " She replied before I could answer.

"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.



__________________________________________________________________________________________

 

[GeomZii]

Rough/unedited Drafts.


As soon as I started the Earthbending... that was something else entirely. It was exhilarating. Also terrifying. I practiced when I could—in the dead of night, when the other orphans were asleep and the matrons were in their quarters. There, in the small courtyard behind the orphanage, I experimented. Moving rocks. Shifting sand. Learning what my new power could do.

Much to my disappointment, while I had gained knowledge and a power source, I did not get the muscle memory and years practice experience of an earthbender. The knowledge was there—how to draw strength from my stance, how to follow the rhythm of the earth, how to turn my yang chakra into physical force. But understanding and execution were different things. My yang chakra acted as chi reserves that I had to learn to control. When I tried to bend, I felt the earth respond, but weakly—a faint resonance instead of the thrumming power I knew should be possible.

It will take time, I told myself. Time, practice and patience.

The Earthbending practice was going well—better than well. I had mastered the basic forms, learning to move sand and stone with increasing precision. The earth responded to my will now, bending to my commands with a satisfying thrum of power. I stood in the center of the training ground, feeling the stone beneath my feet. It was alive in a way I couldn't quite describe—not conscious, not aware. But waiting for me.
"Again," I muttered.
I stomped my foot, and a pillar of stone erupted from the ground. I twisted, and the pillar crumbled, reforming into a wall. I practiced until my yang chakra reserves were exhausted, until my muscles screamed and my mind blurred with fatigue.

The first year passed like sand through fingers.
I learned to read the Academy the way I had learned to read the orphanage—watching, waiting, and cataloging every detail that might one day mean the difference between survival and failure. And classes were progressing. I was well ahead of the others in the basics—reading, writing, and calligraphy, history—except for the clan kids. Mathematics was where I truly excelled, even when the questions here were more tricky than they had any right to be.

Hara-sensei was not the only instructor, but he was the one who mattered. The others came and went—a rotating cast of chūnin and occasional chunin who taught specialized subjects with varying degrees of competence and enthusiasm. Hara-sensei was constant. He observed every class, every exercise, every sparring match. His eyes missed nothing. I made certain he saw nothing worth noticing.

"So. First lesson!" Hara-sensei began, slamming his hand on the desk. "For shinobi, our greatest tool—the thing that makes us better than any mere warrior who curls a fist or trains with a weapon—is our ability to use chakra!"

He paced across the front of the room, his scarred face intense.

"Chakra is the basis of everything we do! Chakra is a mixture of both physical energy and mental or spiritual energy moulded together. Physical energy is collected from the body and spiritual energy from the mind's consciousness, and it can be increased through studying, meditation, training, and experience. The most important thing you can learn to develop is your chakra! It will determine your strengths and weaknesses. What jutsu you can use in the future, how much you can use, and how you fight! Developing your chakra will be something taught throughout your time here."

He formed a hand seal.

"Hand seals are used for manipulating chakra commonly. The best way to channel your chakra is to begin looking within while forming a completed circuit with your most commonly used pathways. This means the hands." On his left hand, the index and middle finger pointed up while the other two curled over the top of a mirroring right hand.

"There are twelve 'commonly' used hand seals." He said
Huh, these handseals match with the Chinese zodiac. I wondered
Hiro sensei said loudly grabbing my attention " This is the Ram seal! The best for gathering up your chakra and making it flow freely!"

Hiro leaned over to me, whispering, "Why does he make everything sound like life or death?"

"Because it is," I whispered back.

Hara-sensei's eyes snapped to us. "Something to share with the class, Kaito? Hiro?"

"No, sensei," we said in unison.

"Good. Now, this handseal will make you light up like a firework to any sensors, so if you have to perform this prior to creating any jutsu, you are giving away your position and you are also wasting time. Part of practising jutsu is making sure you have the pathways well trained such that you can rapidly flow through the hand seals required to make it work."

He worked through another two hand seals slowly.
Apparently, we would only learn what chakra is and practice hand seals in this subject throughout the first year. We weren't taught much about chakra, other than that it existed. But we were drilled mercilessly on hand seals. How to recognize them, how to form them, what they were most often associated with.

The twelve hand seals were: Ram, Snake, Horse, Dragon, Rat, Ox, Tiger, Hare, Bird, Dog, Boar, and Monkey.
We spent hours each day practicing the seals—forming them, releasing them, flowing from one to the next in rapid succession. My fingers cramped. My hands ached. But I persisted.

By the end of the first month, I could form all twelve seals in under three seconds. By the end of the third month, I could do it in two. By the end of the first year, I could flow through the entire sequence in under a second—faster than anyone else in the class except the clan kids, who had been practicing since they could walk.

During a break between classes, Hiro collapsed onto the ground beside me, groaning.
"My hands are going to fall off," he complained. "How do you do it so fast?"
"Practice," I said simply.
"That's not an answer!"
"It's the only answer that matters."

Mido sat down nearby, watching our interaction, her expression thoughtful.

Hiro forcefully said " I've been practicing longer and you're still faster than me."
A hint of anger was there. And a pint of jealousy too. He wanted too master handseals quickly and become ninjutsu master. And which child don't want to do Ninjutsu left and right. But he will never be a master of ninjutsu. He doesn't have the chakra reserves nor the control to perform ninjutsu in fights for long term. No matter how hard I try, he will lack behind in that area always.

I shrugged bringing back myself from thoughts and said "Maybe I just have nimble fingers."

Hiro snorted. "Nimble fingers. Right. Next you'll tell us you've been secretly training with the clan kids."

"No," I said flatly. "I haven't."

"Then how—"

"Hiro," Mido interrupted quietly. "Let it go."
Hiro looked between us, confused, but dropped the subject.

Taijutsu was a different beast.
At the Academy, we were all taught an adaptation of the basic style, called the Sabaku-ryu, the 'desert style.' It was a version of the Suna taijutsu style that had been adapted specifically for children and teenagers. It emphasized dodging and deflection with the understanding that any opponents we encountered would be taller, stronger, and faster than us. There were many feints involved and katas for usage of poison or hidden weapons, though none were present in first year.

There was no sparring yet. Most of first-year Taijutsu involved practicing katas, pre-fighting stretching, warm-ups, running, and various drills. It was still mostly stamina exercises, like running, press-ups, setups. There were flexibility exercises, stretches, obstacle courses. And there were rigidly repeated basics.

The basic stance was called the "Sand Stance"—feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, weight distributed evenly. It was a defensive posture, designed to allow quick movement in any direction.

"Root yourself," the instructor said—a chūnin assistant teacher named Kenji who had lost two fingers on his left hand in some forgotten skirmish. "You are the desert. Unmovable. Unshakeable. Let your enemies break against you like waves against stone."

I understood this instinctively. The earthbending training had taught me to root myself, to draw strength from the ground beneath my feet. The Sand Stance was a pale imitation of the Horse Stance, but it was close enough. The first kata was simple: a sequence of blocks, deflections, and counters. Step forward, deflect with the left arm, counter with the right. Step back, deflect with the right arm, counter with the left. Repeat.

We practiced it hundreds of times. Thousands. Until the movements became instinct, until our bodies moved without conscious thought.
"Again," Kenji said. "Faster."

We practiced until our muscles screamed and our minds blurred. We practiced until the kata was as natural as breathing. By the end of the first year, I could execute the basic kata with mechanical precision. Not perfect—the clan kids were still better—but competent. Reliable.

The Academy's curriculum was brutal but effective—daily runs, daily calisthenics, daily drills. By the end of the first year, I could run for hours without stopping, perform a hundred push-ups without rest, and execute taijutsu forms with mechanical precision.

The academic theory classes were a welcome break from the physical training.

In reading and writing classes, Hara-sensei said "Words are weapons," tapping the chalkboard. "A well-placed word can start a war. A poorly-placed word can end a life. You will learn to use words as carefully as you use kunai."

We learned to read and write in the common script—the simplified characters used throughout the Elemental Nations. We learned to write after mission reports, to compose letters, to take notes, to write short emergency messages. We learned to read between the lines, to identify subtext, to recognize when something false was written and spot false information.

Calligraphy was a separate class, where we learned the art of brush and ink—the precise strokes, the careful spacing, the subtle variations in pressure that transformed mere characters into works of art. "Calligraphy is not just writing," Hara-sensei said. "It is meditation. It is discipline. It is the physical manifestation of your inner state. A calm mind produces elegant strokes. A chaotic mind produces chaos."

Mathematics was where I truly excelled.
All those years of formal education finally has some use. Hehe.
The instructors taught arithmetic, algebra, geometry—the basic mathematical foundations that every shinobi needed. Calculating trajectories, estimating distances, measuring angles, determining the amount of explosive tag required to destroy a bridge. But the questions here were more tricky than they had any right to be.

The Ideology of Sand was the subject I hated most, filled with propaganda to brim. While I agree propaganda has its uses but too much lies and falsehood would hinder students more in the field. Our sensei should have recognized it. Even Shinobi were not immune to cultural conditioning and biases blind spots.
or students were left to figure it out themselves and those who fail will be field casualty A dark thought occur in mind. No suna doesn't have that many shinobi population to kill it's own shinobi. I try to reassure myself but picture of Pakura came to my mind.

My chakra reserves grew as well, fed by the constant physical conditioning and my nightly meditation. I could feel it now—a warm river of energy flowing through my body, ready to be shaped and directed. I practiced chakra control obsessively, pushing energy into my limbs, holding it, releasing it.

By the end of the year, I could stick sand to my forehead only with chakra control without using earthbending arts. A minor achievement by shinobi standards, but I knew what it meant. I could strengthen my body with chakra. I could move faster, strike harder, endure longer.

The year ended and I passed my exams—not with distinction, but with competence. I was promoted to the second year, along with Hiro, Mido, and perhaps twenty other students. The rest had either failed or dropped out.

Gamon was first in the class rankings at the year's end, as expected. Katsuro was second. I was seventh.
Hiro said, looking at the results, "Hey! Kaito. Look, look. You ranked seventh. Perhaps you could beat the clan kids next year, if you trained hard."

I shrugged. "Yes, I will."

Hiro was many things—loyal, energetic, and surprisingly perceptive when he bothered to pay attention—but he did not understand.
Mido understood, though she never said so.

Gamon was the class prodigy hailing from the Hitome clan.

The Hitome clan was a minor clan with very few members that had arrived from the Land of Lightning in ancient times during the Warring States Era. They specialized in Magnet Release, although only very few among the their tiny numbers in the clan had an active bloodline, usually skipping generations. Gamon was one such boy in our class. He was also the clan prodigy.

He had short, messy dark-blue hair and narrow yellow eyes, sharp features, and a fair complexion. He was a very calm and stoic person, displaying no visible emotion but also proud and stubborn. His family—the Hitome clan, if rumors were true—had trained him in taijutsu and ninjutsu. He excelled at everything, only lagging behind Katsuro in calligraphy, some theory classes, and taijutsu. But he was catching up fast.

Gamon had pale yellow eyes that always seemed to be looking at something beyond what was directly in front of him.

During a break, Gamon approached me.
"Seventh place," he said, his voice flat. "Not bad for an orphan."

I met his gaze. "I'll be higher next year."

"Will you?"

"Yes."

He studied me for a moment, then nodded slowly. "We'll see."

He walked away without another word.
Then there was Katsuro Chikamatsu from the Chikamatsu clan—or, as I called them, the puppet clan—which was on the rise due to the Second Kazekage's strengthening of puppet techniques.

Monzaemon Chikamatsu was the inventor of the art of puppetry. Originally using puppets as a source of entertainment, he worked diligently with several shinobi under the guidance of the Second Kazekage to convert the talent into a unique form of combat.

His grandchildren, Lady Chiyo and Ebizo, the famous jōnin twins, and Chiyo's son, my classmate Katsuro, hailed from this clan. Their clan led the Puppeteer Department. However, due to the Second Kazekage and different shinobi helping in puppet technique research, power in the Puppeteer Department was more diluted. Their clan's chakra string style was not a bloodline, but they did have more affinity towards chakra strings, giving them an advantage.

Katsuro possessed the kind of effortless grace that made other children hate him on principle. While Gamon's taijutsu was head-on and brutal, Katsuro's taijutsu was precise, almost mechanical. Gamon was fast, but Katsuro was faster. Katsuro was strong, but Gamon was stronger. Gamon was different. Where Gamon was showy, Katsuro was quiet. Where Gamon demanded attention, Katsuro seemed to actively avoid it.

Then there was third rank Chika Moudoku from the Moudoku Clan—or, as they were commonly called, the poison clan—which was somehow the current strongest clan.

Truly, the wonders will never end, I mused. They had the most members in the Poison and Antidote Department and were largest clan of Suna.

Then fourth in rank was Kagerou Arashi from the Arashi clan, which specialized in Wind Release and formed the majority of the Wind Corps of Suna. They were famous for their giant folding fans.

The clans were given many benefits for joining Sunagakure by first Kazekage, it seems and furthermore for sending their kids to the Academy by second Kazekage, from what I could gather. Though officially all clans serve kazekage loyally but behind curtains they vie for power.

There were two more clan kids before me. After that we returned to the orphanage and had dinner among ourselves celebrating our passing the exams.

The Celestial Grimoire had stir after dinner,

Celestial Grimoire — 400 CP

Depths of the Mind (100 CP) — Magic The Gathering

The path of a Wizard is study, rote memorization and learning. These qualities are innate to those who wish to practice magic. Being infused with the cooling touch of Blue Mana, your intelligence has boosted along with your memory and ability to learn. Put simply, you are quite the savant, easily worth three of your peers when looking towards solving a problem, learning three times faster than normal, and having a perfect memory barring magical interference.

Accept?

Yes.

Remaining CP — 300

This will sure come in handy.

 

[GeomZii]

Rough/unedited Drafts.

The beginning of second year increased our workload more. It began with blood.

Not literally—though that would come soon enough. But metaphorically, the innocence of childhood died in the second year of the Academy. We were no longer children playing at being shinobi. We were weapons being forged in the desert's furnace.

I understood this the moment Hara-sensei walked into our classroom on the first day and threw a kunai into the chalkboard.
"Rules of shinobi warfare," he said, as if he hadn't just embedded a blade in school property. "First rule: there are no rules."

The class sat in stunned silence.
"Second rule: anyone who tells you otherwise is lying." He pulled the kunai free and began writing. "Third rule: survive."

The curriculum had shifted. Where first year had been about building foundations—reading, writing, basic physical conditioning—second year was about building foundations of killers. Every class, every exercise, every moment was designed to strip away the softness of civilian life and replace it with something harder. Something sharper. Naturally, I adapted.

The tactics and strategy classes were taught by a scarred chūnin named Renji, who had lost an eye in some skirmish before the war and spoke about warfare with the casual intimacy of a man describing an old lover.
"A shinobi who fights fair is a dead shinobi," Renji said, tapping a map of the Land of Wind. "You will never fight fair. You will fight dirty. You will fight smart. You will fight to win, and then you will go home and sleep like a baby because you know you did what was necessary."

But after gaining my Mind perk, I started excelling in all theory classes, leaving behind even Gamon, Katsuro. My perfect memory gave me a huge advantage.

During a study session, Chika Moudoku approached me, her expression curious.
"You've been different lately," she said. "Your answers in class... they're perfect. Too perfect."

I looked up from my notes. "Maybe I've just been studying harder."

"Maybe" She tilted her head, studying me like a specimen under a microscope. "Or maybe you're cheating or hiding something."

"Everyone hides something." I did not lower myself to comment on cheating. I could feel the trap there.

"Tch." She said after I failed to take the bait "Maybe. But most people don't hide it as well as you do."
She walked away before I could respond.

We practiced weapons for the first time—kunai, shuriken, how to throw them, how to store them, how to take care of weapons, how to hide them.
Weapons practice was where I struggled most. The kunai felt wrong in my hand. The shuriken spun unpredictably when I threw them. My body, trained by years of earthbending katas, wanted to move in ways that were incompatible with the fluid grace required for projectile weapons.
"Your stance is wrong," Hara-sensei said, watching me throw. "You're rooted. Too grounded. You need to be light. Fluid. Like the wind."

Like the wind. I filed that away.

The katas of earthbending exercises did not transfer easily to throwing knives and blades. On the contrary, they hindered my weapons throwing, as fluidity and agility were required. Though my aim was precise, Hara-sensei noted. I practiced obsessively. Every spare moment, every quiet hour, I threw kunai at targets until my fingers bled and my arm screamed. I threw until I could hit a target nine times out of ten. I threw until the motion became instinct.
But Hara-sensei was right. There was something fundamentally incompatible between my earthbending training and weapons work. The earth was solid. Patient. Immovable. Weapons required the opposite—speed, flexibility, the ability to flow from one motion to the next without hesitation. I would never be exceptional with thrown weapons. Competent, perhaps. But never exceptional.

So I focus my energy on other subjects.
The sparring sessions were where I truly learned what I was capable of.
Hiro was my first opponent. We squared off in the training yard, the afternoon sun casting long shadows across the sand. He grinned at me, bouncing on his heels.

"Don't go easy on me, Kaito."

"I won't."

We clashed.

Hiro was fast— though not faster than me, certainly. He had always been energetic and had the natural athleticism of a child who had spent his life running and playing and fighting. His strikes were wild but powerful, each blow carrying the weight of his enthusiasm.

I was faster and precise. And I could think three times faster than him.
I let him come at me, deflecting his strikes with minimal movement. The Sabaku-ryu emphasized evasion and redirection, turning an opponent's strength against them. I moved with the attacks, flowing around them like sand around a stone.

Hiro overextended. I grabbed his wrist, twisted, and sent him sprawling.
"Again," he said, scrambling to his feet.

We fought three more times. I won all three.

"Man," Hiro groaned, rubbing his shoulder. "When did you get so good?"

"Practice," I said.

"You always say that!"

"Because it's always true."

Taijutsu class came with sparring with other students. This was where clan kids truly shone. Even students whose parents were ninja excelled much better than civilian students. Even I was left behind. And when I faced the clan kids, the gap became apparent.

Gamon moved like a force of nature. Every strike was backed by years of training, every movement calculated for maximum efficiency. He didn't waste energy. He didn't hesitate. He simply acted, and his actions were devastating.

I lasted thirty seconds before he put me on the ground.
"Your defense is good," he said, offering me a hand. "But you hesitate. You think too much."

I took his hand and pulled myself up. "I'll work on it."

"You'll need to." His yellow eyes met mine. "The enemies we face won't give you time to think."

Katsuro was different. Where Gamon was overwhelming power, Katsuro was surgical precision. He moved like a puppet master controlling his own strings, every motion exact, every strike landing precisely where he intended.

I lasted forty-five seconds against him. Better, but still not enough.
"Interesting," Katsuro said, his voice soft. "You adapt quickly."

"Not quickly enough."

"No," he agreed. "Not yet."

After class, Kagerou Arashi approached me. She was tall for her age, with long dark hair tied back in a practical ponytail and sharp grey eyes that missed nothing.

"You're the orphan everyone is talking about," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Who is talking about me?."

" Every other student and I also heard sensei talk about you among themselves. It is only natural that shinobi will gossip, you're even better than some clan kids."

"Thank you."

She studied me for a moment. "Don't thank me yet. Being better than civilians isn't saying much. After all they are trash."
Her lips curved into a proud smile and she sneered "You will never be good as us."
She walked away stomping her feet, leaving me standing alone in the training yard.

The gap wasn't insurmountable. I could see it—the path forward, the training required, the improvements necessary. But it would take time.
The survival exercise came in the third month of second year.

We were taken into the desert before dawn—thirty children, two instructors, and enough supplies to last a week if we rationed carefully. The instructors left us at the edge of the deep desert, gave us coordinates for a rendezvous point, and disappeared.

"Survive," Hara-sensei said. "Reach the rendezvous in three days. Anyone who doesn't make it fails." Then he was gone.

The desert stretched before us, endless and indifferent. The sun was already climbing, the heat shimmering off the dunes. We had no food. No water. No shelter. Most of the class panicked. No food. No water. No shelter. Only what we could find or make. Even clan kids find the exercise difficult at first.

Ofcourse, all their life they had been supported by their clans. They were used to being resourceful.

Although, the clan kids recovered first, organizing themselves into groups, pooling whatever resources they have, planning routes. The civilians milled about in confusion, arguing about which direction to go. The orphans—those who had survived the first year—simply started walking.

I started walking too. But unlike the others, I wasn't just walking. I was feeling.
The earth beneath my feet spoke to me. Not in words—not in anything so concrete—but in sensations. Vibrations. The subtle shift of sand grains, the distant rumble of stone beneath the dunes. My earthbending training had given me a connection to the ground that went beyond chakra. It was instinctual now, as natural as breathing. I could feel the water hidden beneath the sand. Not much—this was the deep desert, after all—but enough. A trickle here, a pocket there. I marked the locations in my mind, building a mental map of survival.

I almost thrived. Almost.
The Nutrition perk I had gained years ago allowed me to survive on minimal food, stretching what little I could find into enough sustenance for days. But heat, winds, and sands were ever present.
At sunset, I found myself sitting on a sand dune, watching the sun wheel overhead. The desert was beautiful in its own way, vast and empty and indifferent. It did not care whether we lived or died. It simply was.

On the second day, I encountered Gamon.
He was alone, walking with the steady, measured pace of someone conserving energy. His clothes were torn, his face covered in dust, but his eyes were sharp.

"Kaito," he said.

"Gamon."

We fell into step beside each other, neither of us speaking. The silence stretched between us, broken only by the crunch of sand beneath our feet.

"How many have you passed?" he asked finally.

"Seven. Most of them weren't even moving."

He nodded. "I passed nine. Two were almost dead."

I didn't respond. There was nothing to say.
"The desert doesn't care," he said quietly. "It doesn't care about clans or bloodlines or training. It only cares about survival."

"Is that why you're helping me?" I asked. "Because the desert doesn't care?"

He looked at me, his yellow eyes unreadable. "I'm not helping you. I'm walking. You happen to be walking in the same direction."

"Of course."

We walked together for another hour before he veered off, heading toward a rock formation in the distance.
"Good luck, orphan," he said rudely, but there was no heat in words, merely truth.

That was the thing with Gamon, He usually was truthful and seemed larger than life kind of persona, I would not expect a shinobi to be, especially Clan shinobi. And Gamon also possessed charisma in excess. Perhaps that's why he was liked by many.
Heh. Who would have thought future third Kazekage was this charming and likeable in childhood.

"You too, prodigy."

On the third day, I reached the rendezvous point.
Hara-sensei was waiting, along with a handful of other instructors. They looked at me with something that might have been approval.
"You're the seventh to arrive," Hara-sensei said.
Seventh. I had expected to be higher.

Who else?
I looked around. Gamon stood off to the side, his clothes torn but his posture straight. Katsuro sat on a rock, his expression calm. Two other clan kids—Chika and Kagerou—were nearby. Two more clan kids were there but they look more tired.

The clan kids had beaten me. I thought, anger clouding my mind. Of course they had.

"Not bad," Chika said. "For an orphan."
I didn't respond. I simply found a spot in the shade and sat down to wait.

Twenty-three other students eventually arrived. Seven didn't. Hara-sensei and the others had to rescue them and bring them back.
After returning to class, Hara-sensei said, "You have had your first taste of the desert. This year you will learn only theory about survival. Which animals to hunt, which plants to avoid, common deadly animals of the desert, finding water, building shelter, avoiding predators, and how to survive the desert overall. This exercise was designed to give you a taste of heat, dust, thirst, hunger, sand, winds, and danger of the desert so that you take survival classes very seriously. The desert will kill you before any enemy shinobi could ever reach you."

The rest of second year passed in a blur of training and study.
I improved. Slowly, painfully, but undeniably. My weapons work improved slowly, but my taijutsu was getting better. I learned to move with the earth rather than against it, using my connection to the ground to anticipate my opponents' movements before they made them.

It wasn't cheating. Not exactly. I could feel the vibrations of their footsteps, the shift of their weight as they prepared to strike. My earthbending senses gave me an advantage that no one else in the class possessed.

 

[GeomZii]

Rough/unedited Drafts.


Third year brought chakra control, which became my favourite class.
This was what I had been waiting for —the foundation of everything else. Ninjutsu, genjutsu, medical techniques, sealing. All of it required precise chakra control, the ability to shape and direct energy with surgical precision.
I threw myself into the training with an intensity that bordered on obsession. I enjoyed it.

The first exercise was simple: channel chakra into a rock and make it move. The rock was placed on the palm, and the goal was to make it stick without gripping it in any form.
While most students took weeks to achieve even a flicker of movement.
I did it on the first time even before Gamon, Katsuro, who took some time. Other clan kids had done took full day. Huh. They should have done similar exercises in clans. Perhaps it's because of different types of rocks surface.

"Impressive," Hara-sensei said, watching the rock dance across my palm.
The second exercise was sand. Sand placed in the palm, and the goal was the same. It was harder than the rock—more scattered, more unpredictable. It required a lighter touch, a more delicate control.
I did not struggle. My earthbending training seemed to help me in this regard.

Hara-sensei watched my progress with increasing interest.
"You have a gift," he said. "A natural talent for chakra control. Or perhaps your earth affinity is very good." He eyed me curiously "Here try with this piece of cloth" he said. When I tried to stick cloth, I could not stick it that easily.
He made me do chakra exercise with leaf, paper , heavy pebbles, sand, rock and even water.

"Good news is you have a very high earth affinity." he said. " Bad news is for improving chakra control, doing chakra control exercises with stone, sand and rock will not be as effective for you as they are normally. You will have to do chakra exercises with different materials to improve your control comparatively" he said and then went away to help other students.

The infiltration and mannerism classes were a revelation.
I had expected them to be about sneaking around and pretending to be someone else. And they were—partially. But they were also about something deeper: the art of deception itself.
"The best lies are the ones people want to believe," the instructor said. She was a kunoichi named Kurumi, her face so unremarkable that I forgot it the moment I looked away. She had a short frame and tiny build.

"A good infiltrator doesn't just look like someone else—they become someone else. They think like them. Feel like them. Breathe like them."
We practiced assuming different roles. A merchant. A beggar. A noble. A servant. We learned to change our posture, our speech patterns, our mannerisms. We learned to read people—their desires, their fears, their weaknesses.

I was good at this. Disturbingly good.
"You're a natural," Hiro said, watching me impersonate a merchant haggling for goods. "Have you done this before?"
"No," I said. Ofcourse I had haggled money thousand of times before.

There was an irony to it. In a way, my entire existence in this world was an infiltration. I was pretending to be a child, pretending to be ordinary, pretending to be someone I wasn't. The skills I learned in Kurumi's class were just a more formal version of what I had been doing since birth.

I loved the history classes. The instructors taught from scrolls and oral traditions, recounting the history of the Elemental Nations with the reverence of priests reciting scripture. The founding of the villages. The wars. The treaties. The betrayals.

The basic finance class was surprisingly useful and easy for me. I had never thought of myself as a businessman, but as I sat through lessons on supply and demand, currency exchange, and the economics of warfare, I began to see the world in a new light.

Shinobi were weapons. Everyone knew that. But weapons cost money. Kunai, shuriken, explosive tags, medical supplies—all of it required resources. And resources required money. And money required trade.
Sunagakure was poor. The Land of Wind was poor. The desert provided little of value—some glass, some minerals, but nothing that couldn't be found cheaper elsewhere. The village survived on the reputation of its shinobi, on the fear they inspired, on the contracts they fulfilled.
But fear was a fragile currency. And reputation could be destroyed in a single mission.
I began to understand why Suna was always the weakest of the Five Great Villages. It wasn't just the environment, though that certainly didn't help. It was the economics. The Land of Wind had no resources. No farmland. No industry. It was a nation of nomads and warriors, living on the edge of survival. Of course I knew that before, but knowing and seeing firsthand were different. And the other nations knew it. I filed this knowledge away for later. But that time was not yet.

The years passed by and my rank start increasing, Thanks to theory marks and my efforts I have secured 5th rank. I would have ranked higher but it seems my scores have put pressure on Chika and Kagerou and they have improved more. Mido told me their clans had increased their training.

Fourth year was when we learned to kill.
Not literally—not yet. But the training changed. The sparring sessions became more brutal. The weapons practice became more intense. The survival exercises became more deadly.
We were being prepared. For what, exactly, no one said. But we all knew.

The ninjutsu theory classes were fascinating. We learned about the nature of chakra—how it was formed from physical and spiritual energy, how it was shaped by hand seals and mental imagery, how it could be manipulated to produce effects that defied the laws of physics.
But we didn't learn any actual jutsu. Not yet. The instructors explained that ninjutsu required more advanced chakra control than we currently possessed. We would learn techniques in fifth and sixth year, if we survived that long. Not that it stopped clan kids to learn. I also didn't wait.

At night, in the hidden corners of the orphanage, I practiced what I knew from my earthbending training. The techniques weren't jutsu—not exactly—but they were close enough. I could move rocks with my chakra. I could shape sand into simple forms. I could sense vibrations through the ground.
These weren't techniques that any Suna shinobi would recognize. They were bending forms—the movements of an earthbender, adapted to use chakra instead of chi. But they worked. And that was what mattered.

The Art of Illusions classes were more challenging.
Deception and misdirection are going to be a fundamental part of class. Most of subject focus was on petty tricks and blending in plain sight, the acting part to supplement our genjutsu. It was only at the end of year, we were introduced to genjutsu theory and only taught to recognise and flair our chakra to dispel genjutsu.
Illusions required a different kind of control—not the physical manipulation of earth and water, but the mental manipulation of perception. We learned to recognize genjutsu first, then to dispel it. The recognition was easy—I could sense the subtle wrongness of a genjutsu by the way the earth felt beneath my feet. But the dispelling required a surge of chakra that I found difficult to produce on command.

The intelligence gathering classes were more my speed. We learned to observe without being observed, to listen without being noticed, to extract information from the most mundane details. I was already good at this—my entire childhood had been an exercise in watching and waiting—but the formal training sharpened my skills to a razor's edge.

By the end of fourth year, I could read a person's intentions from their posture. I could identify a lie from the way their eyes moved. I could determine someone's emotional state from the rhythm of their breathing. At least for the civilians. Ninja were a different game. These were skills that would keep me alive.

Trapping was a class I hadn't expected to enjoy. I hated outing before. There was something satisfying about creating a mechanism—a sequence of events that would unfold without my direct intervention. A tripwire here, a pitfall there, a hidden spike in between. Traps were a conversation with the future, a way to shape events before they happened.I took to it naturally.
"The goal of a trap isn't to kill," the instructor said. "It's to control. To direct. To force your enemy into a position where you have the advantage."

I understood this. It was the same principle as earthbending—using the environment to shape the flow of combat. The earth was my ally, my weapon, my tool. Traps were just another way of extending my reach.
The first aid classes were more challenging. We learned to treat wounds—cuts, burns, fractures, infections. We learned to identify poisons and their antidotes. We learned to perform emergency surgery in the field, with nothing but basic tools and whatever supplies we could carry.

I was good at this too—better than I expected. My Celestial Grimoire perk, the one that had given me talent in healing, made everything easier and I could scored perfectly in theory due to perfect memory. I could diagnose injuries at a glance. I could remember complex medical procedures after a single reading. My hands, trained by years of earthbending, were steady and precise.

"You have a gift," Hara-sensei said. "Have you considered medical training as an elective?"
I had. The Medical Training elective in fifth and sixth years would give me access to advanced techniques, knowledge of poisons and antidotes, and a legitimate reason to develop abilities that would otherwise draw suspicion.
"I'll think about it," I said.

The sparring sessions had become brutal.
We fought with real weapons now—blunted, but still dangerous. We fought in teams, in environments that mimicked real combat conditions, in situations designed to test our limits.
I lost more often than I won. The clan kids were simply better—better trained, better equipped, better prepared. Gamon could have killed me a dozen times over in our sparring matches. Katsuro could have done the same.

Yet I was improving at a rate that made other clan kids worried. I tied in sparring with them sometimes. When the first time I had defeated a clan kid, sensei had praised me. But my focus was on getting stronger.

After one particularly intense sparring session, I found myself sitting against the wall, catching my breath. Mido sat down beside me, silent as always.
"You're getting stronger," she said.

"Trying to."

"The clan kids are worried."

I looked at her. "Are they?"

"Chika mentioned it. She said you're improving too fast. That it's unnatural."

"What did you say?"

Mido shrugged. "I said maybe she's just not as good as she thinks she is."

I laughed. "You didn't."

"I did." She smiled slightly. "She didn't appreciate it."

"I can imagine."

We sat in comfortable silence for a moment.

"Kaito," Mido said quietly. "Whatever you're doing—whatever's making you improve so fast keep doing it"

"I know."

"Good." She stood, brushing sand from her clothes. "Break the arrogance of clan kids"

Celestial Grimoire — 350 CP

Natural Talent (100 CP) — Fist Of The North Star • Talent

In both body and mind you are simply better than others. You learn quicker and remember more while your physical training is more effective, showing improvements in less time and making gains faster. It isn't much, perhaps just 1.1 times what you should be, but for someone with drive even that small edge can be an overwhelming advantage in the long run.

Accept?

Yes.

Remaining CP — 250
A 10% increase in training. Yes please.

 

[GeomZii]

Rough/unedited Drafts.

Fifth year brought the electives.
I chose Poison and Antidotes as my primary specialization. It was a natural fit—Sunagakure's poison tradition was famous throughout the Elemental Nations, and the Moudoku clan had built their entire reputation on their mastery of toxins. Learning poison techniques would give me a powerful tool for both offense and defense.

The Medical Training elective was my secondary choice. Healing was already my talent—my Celestial Grimoire perk had made sure of that—but formal training would give me the practical skills to back up my natural aptitude.

The combination was perfect and with my healing art perk it will benefit me more. Poison and medicine were two sides of the same coin. The same knowledge that allowed me to kill could also allow me to save. Suna was known for poison.

I threw myself into the studies with renewed vigor.
The Fifth year Ninjutsu subject was where I finally learned real techniques.
Suna version of the academy three. Theory on elemental jutsu, their strengths and weaknesses.
Wind Release was the specialty of Sunagakure—the element that defined the Land of Wind, the power that had made the Arashi clan famous.

But there were enough E-rank earth jutsu that could be taught in the academy. This year we would only learn elemental jutsu theory.

The poisons class was my personal favorite.

The instructor was a member of the Moudoku clan—an old woman named Aimi. She had a face like cracked leather and hands that moved with the precision of a surgeon. She taught us the basics of poison crafting—how to extract toxins from plants and animals, how to concentrate them, how to mix them into compounds that could be delivered through contact, ingestion, or inhalation.

"The key to poison is knowledge," Aimi said during one class, holding up a small vial of green liquid. "You must know your poison—its effects, its symptoms, its antidote—before you can use it effectively. A poison without an antidote is a poison that will eventually kill you."

She glanced at me as she said this, her expression unreadable.

We learned to identify common poisons by sight, smell, and taste. We learned to craft basic toxins from desert plants—the deathroot, the sandviper's venom, the rare and deadly ghost's bane. We learned to administer antidotes, to purify contaminated water, to recognize the symptoms of poisoning in ourselves and others.

I excelled. My healing talent made the chemical interactions intuitive; my earthbending precision made my hands steady. By the end of the first semester, I could craft three different types of poison from memory. By the end of the second, I had developed my own formula—a fast-acting paralytic that could be delivered through contact.

After class one day, Chika approached me.
"That formula you developed," she said. "The paralytic."

"What about it?"

"It's good. Really good." She studied me with those sharp eyes. "How did you come up with it?"

"Experimenting."

"Experimenting." She repeated the word like it tasted strange. "You know, most people spend years learning what you seem to know instinctively. You don't experiment and develop new formula using this useless poisons that are taught in class."

"Useless?" I asked

"Ofcourse. Do you really thought teachers will teach you real poisons" She stepped closer. " The poisons taught in class can only kill civilians. These are common poisons that most ninja, especially in suna develop resistance. Most these poisons will slow other shinobi" She whispered smugly. "And yet you develop new fast-acting paralytic somehow"

I met her gaze without flinching. "What are you suggesting?"

She said coldly. "Nothing. Just... observing."

She walked away, leaving me with the distinct impression that I had just been marked.

The genjutsu classes had become more advanced and terrifying.
When I arrived, from within and above shadows looked back as though watching. Cruel smiles stretched their faces like spirits that were just waiting for me to enter so they might tear me apart in their domain. This... it struck me as odd.

I felt out my chakra and grimaced as I detected another's chakra mixed in. I hadn't even... I sighed and flexed the chakra in a different direction before allowing it to return to its normal flow. Instantly the ominous portents of the building vanished. It became merely a building that even had different markings and colourations. The faces peering out at the group from the windows and the rooftops vanished. In their place, Kurumi-sensei remained.

Kurumi-sensei noticed I was watching her. I got a small smile and a nod before she formed a handseal. Instantly the feeling returned of being afraid of the entrance of the academy with it—I flexed my chakra and held in the glare I wanted to give.

What on earth was she doing?

She grinned at me before gesturing towards the doorway in a shooing motion as they allowed themselves a small nod. I blinked. Oh. Of course. This was a Genjutsu class.

I was an outlier.

"Hiro, Mido, flair your chakra," I said quietly.

"Eh? Kaito, I... well, I suppose I should," Hiro replied.

"Very well, Kaito," Mido said.

I licked my lips and found them wet. A strange feeling with how dry Suna was... I pulsed my chakra and felt for a moment my view of the surrounding area waver. I blinked in surprise before turning my attention towards my chakra pool.

Kurumi-sensei watched me with narrowed eyes.

I pretended not to notice her and instead probed at my own chakra. Something was wrong. Something was causing the illusionary dust. I flickered my chakra and frowned as the illusion shimmered. It was there but it wasn't nearly as bad. Or was that a sign that I didn't have anywhere near the chakra control I thought I did?

I couldn't even detect the chakra influencing my own. But it had to be there and now that I knew to check perhaps I could unravel it?

Something that did stand out to me now was that I had no idea for how long this genjutsu had been affecting me. The dust was seen as a natural occurrence within Sunagakure, but was that actually the case?

The Hidden Sand shinobi were known for their hiding in the sandstorms, in between dunes in the open desert. Something that required a great familiarity with moving through the dust and sand. Perhaps that much dust within the academy was not something that was always natural?

I clenched my fists and willed the trembling out of my limbs. Had that been killing intent or had I just registered that I might have died just now? I really wasn't enjoying my first genjutsu class. It wasn't even through the first hour!

I stepped into the room to the assessing gaze of many young eyes.

"Hoh? Kaito? Hiro and Mido. Impressive." She tilted her head and her headband glinted in the light. "Find a seat, brats."

"Congratulations for making it to genjutsu class." She swept her eyes around the room. "If you are given an order to appear, you will be there on time."

She turned a thumb towards herself. "As you know, I am Chunin Kurumi. This year I will be your genjutsu teacher. You will refer to me as Kurumi-sensei!"

She quickly wrote this out in the basic language used.

"The class's purpose is not to hold your hand but to let you identify basic genjutsus and how to break them. Deception and misdirection are going to be a fundamental part of genjutsu toolkit. Which you were taught in last year's class of Art of Illusion by me. Today, we will revise all the core fundamentals and you will be tested along the way! Fail... and you will not like the consequences."

Hiro shivered...

"Why do I get the feeling She wants us to fail" Mido whispered to me.

She leaned forward and the desk cracked as she exerted some force. I felt her chakra sweep through the room, pinning everyone. "Is that understood?"

The clan children nodded without care. The genjutsu apparently not affecting them. Around me, other children, the shinobi-born, sat bolt upright. "Yes Sensei!" they chorused. I was among them.

She grunted. "Pathetic," she said derisively. She nodded at the clan children. "Good to see your parents and elders haven't let their standards slip!"

She looked at me and the other children. "Your chakra is your most important tool! Learn to control it better!"

She stood and pounded a fist on the blackboard.

Both glowered at us. She swept her hand out and a kunai buried itself into a student's desk.

"You tell me! Which one is the real me?"

I felt another chakra pulse. I held myself back from leaning forward.
"U-uh?! The one on the right!" shouted the child.

I watched as the sensei clicked her tongue. Her chakra shifted and she threw another kunai? or illusion? This time it was aimed at the desk of a clan child. The kunai was snatched from the air and twirled about idly.
"The one on the left," said the Chika Moudoku with a bored drawl but when kunai shimmered into invisibility even she was surprised.

If I hadn't been able to sense her chakra fluctuating between questioning, I might have also fallen for the trick. She'd swapped places between asking each child. It appeared she was being heavy-handed in favour of the clan kids, and in a way she was, but at the same time she wasn't making it easy by simply allowing someone to reason it out.

It was the different tier taken to another level.

Celestial Grimoire — 300 CP

Pool of Magicka (100) — The Elder Scrolls • Source

The arcane energy known as magicka leaks into Nirn through the Sun and Stars, holes into the divine Realm of Aetherius. And while normally leaving the Aurbis would result in losing access to magicka, that is not the case here. You now have a decently sized pool of magicka that regenerates over time.

Accept?

Not now.

When I returned to the orphanage that night, I opened my celestial grimoire which was pulsing the whole day like I have some kind of notification.

Accept?

Yes

Remaining CP- 200
Magicka settled in my body and celestial grimoire translate it into yin chakra. My yin chakra grew in size upto my yang chakra, which had increased due to chi increase of earthbending. And my overall Chakra grew more balanced. After doing various chakra exercises, I found my chakra control becoming more efficient and more effective. My chakra reserves also grew by margin and my chakra grew... denser was the right word.

The next day in class, we learned to cast illusions now—simple ones, but enough to disorient, to confuse, to create openings in combat. We learned to layer genjutsu, to combine them with taijutsu and ninjutsu, to use them as tools rather than tricks.

I struggled. Genjutsu required a kind of mental flexibility that didn't come naturally to me. My mind was too analytical, too logical, too rooted in material world, my years of memory which told me reality was fixed and nothing could change it. I could recognize an illusion, but creating one required me to think in ways that felt fundamentally wrong.

But by the end of fifth year, I could cast a basic genjutsu—a subtle alteration of perception that made my enemies see me a fraction of a second slower than I actually was. It wasn't much, but it was enough. In combat, a fraction of a second could mean the difference between life and death.

The reconnaissance and tracking classes were a welcome break from the mental strain. We learned to track targets through the desert, to read signs in the sand, to move without leaving traces. We learned to survive in the wilderness, to find water and shelter, to avoid predators and enemies. I was already good at this—my earthbending senses gave me an advantage that no one else in the class possessed. I could feel vibrations through the ground, sense the presence of living creatures by the way they disturbed the earth.

The survival exercise in fifth year was the most brutal yet. We were dropped in the deep desert—not the edge, but the true deep, the part of the Land of Wind that no one ever visited voluntarily. We were given no supplies, no instructions, no support. Just a destination and a deadline. Survive for two weeks. Reach the rendezvous. Don't die.
The task was simple yet I almost didn't make it.

The first week was manageable. I found water, found shelter, found enough food to keep going. My Nutrition perk kept me alive when the others would have starved. My earthbending senses kept me oriented when the sandstorms came.

But the second week was different. I encountered a sandworm—not the giant creatures from the myths, but a smaller variant, still large enough to swallow a man whole. It hunted me for three days, following my tracks through the dunes, waiting for me to rest. I couldn't rest. I couldn't sleep. I could only run. By the time I reached the rendezvous, I was barely conscious. My body was a map of cuts and bruises. My mind was a fog of exhaustion and fear.

By the time I reached, I was almost dead tired on verge of falling. Hara-sensei looked at me with something that might have been respect.

"You need improvement," he said.

I don't have energy to argue or say anything so I merely nodded. But I agree with him I needed to improve. I am 3rd now in many subjects. But I need to beat Katsuro and Gamon.

 

[GeomZii]

Rough/unedited Drafts.

Mido's POV

Start of fifth year

As long as I can remember, Kaito has been with Hiro and me. According to our matrons, he had learned to walk quickly. He always acted our big brother even though he was about one year younger than us.



"Wake up "shouted Hiro, barging into my room. Since we had performed well in the academy. The head matron has given me a separate room.



"We are going to be late for our first day fifth year." Hiro exclaimed.



"I was already awake and ready," I told him. "Where is Kaito?"



"He is also ready. Let's go"



They both have been given a separate single room, where both of them sleeps, although Kaito calls it cabin.



Three of us started moving towards the academy. Hiro started talking to Kaito, even though I was sure he was lost in his thoughts, as always.



"What are you thinking, Kaito?" interrupting Hiro, who seemed genuinely surprised. The fool.



"Just thinking about electives," He replied coming back from whatever thoughts he was thinking. "I am gonna choose the Medical and Poison one"



Of course, he is gonna choose them, he performed perfectly in first aid class last year. Even our sensei praised him. Moreover, he never seems to forget theory.

Chika was worried. Nevertheless, so was his ninjutsu, he could easily mold earth and I had seen him making stones and pebbles levitate. Then why??



"What? You are not going to choose ninjutsu?" Hiro said barging in. "I am going to choose ninjutsu and Taijutsu"



Kaito made a face that seemed to disagree. "I don't think you should take them."



"No," Hiro retorted, "I will" but I could hear indecision in his voice as he looked for me for support.



"I can think of reasons, why he should not choose ninjutsu. He doesn't have enough chakra, but why not let him choose Taijutsu?" I asked



"It's not only chakra reserves, but he doesn't have chakra control for ninjutsu. And He will always lack it" He said with confidence.



"As for Taijutsu, while you are energetic, you don't have skills or instincts for it and I don't think you have the patience to focus all your time on taijutsu." He replied turning towards Hiro.



Kaito always seems so sure of himself, so mature that it astonished me.



Where does that belief come from? What goes in that head of yours Kaito? How could you be so sure?



He continued, "Hiro, you should take Bukijutsu and Kenjutsu classes as your first elective and Poisons and Antidote as your second elective. I can help you with theory, it will give you an advantage in fights, and you can simply buy poisons or take poisons I create. In addition, Poisons have better synergy with Weapons, as you need to get close to your opponent to apply it deceptively. So you also need weapons training to defend yourself"



Hiro lost his enthusiasm and agreed.



"And me?"



"You are good in theory but I think you should avoid poisons elective subject, as you don't have built or strength for close combat, which you will need to easily apply poisons. Although you could throw poisoned senbon, they are less effective and you are not fast enough. Plus, most shinobi expect a kunoichi to be a poison user. You should take Fuinjutsu and Trapping. You will fight at distance and later on, you will be given mostly ambush (defensive) missions. And if you perform well in Fuinjutsu, you may mostly stay in the village and research Fuinjutsu. You could even sell scrolls to others, to Hiro, to me." Kaito rambled.



I listened, not agreeing with last words. Knowing him, he will start creating scrolls left and right. Any seal he creates will be a powerful tool in his arsenal. Perhaps that is what he has in his mind, but he did not wish to hurt my feelings.



But as always there were good reasons behind his decision. If I had asked any other students or even sensei, they would have suggested me Genjutsu class and poison class. Usually kunoichi takes those subjects and even excel in it. He was always many steps ahead, thinking scenarios of how it will affect us in missions and battlefield. He always wanted to protect us.



The best weapons are those that no one expects. He always says to us. Sands knows where he comes up with those weird sayings.





Hiro's POV

" Psssh!! Pssssh!!! Hey! Hey Kaito, how are you so good at this Chakra control thingy?? "I asked Kaito in class. Even Mido and other kids were interested



"Don't talk here, I will teach you later," he whispered.



After classes, we returned to the orphanage and he took us ground.



"The best way to be good at chakra control is practice," he said sagely standing in the middle of the ground.



"What?? That's your secret!!!" I said annoyingly



"Yes, but it is not only how many times you practice, but how you practice?" He replied. "I practice chakra control with different materials and sometimes simultaneously."



I looked at Mido asking whether she understood, but she was so focused.



"Let's start with these stones, try to hold it in your hand"



I tried and failed. "But I can't do them"



"Then let's try with different materials, take pebbles and try it. Then we will move on to sand, leaf, paper, dry bark and water." He told me "what I do is start with one pebble and then increase the numbers." He took two pebbles and stuck them in his hands.

He continued "Then I supply enough chakra to raise them"



Wow, the pebbles are flying in the air. "So cool. "



"Then I rotate them first in the same direction and then in opposite different directions changing direction and speed randomly. The end point of this exercise is to try and rotate different materials in different directions at different speeds randomly. Although I have not reached that point. Yet." He said while rotating pebbles.



"You created new chakra control exercises" exclaimed Mido.



"Hey, I got the idea when Hara sensei asked me to try different materials" Kaito said rubbing his head.



"Yet, you develop the chakra control exercise." Mido declared



"Wow, Kaito, You are a genius." I said.



"Is that also the reason why you are so good at recon and tracking?" Mido asked.



"No, that's because of my earth sen.... My earth affinity" He replied. "Although you could try chakra sensing"



"That's an advance ninja technique." Mido questioned.



"Ehh. You can also learn it. Try to remember the feeling when you search your chakra. Now try to search for chakra in somene else. Keep focusing until you feel other chakra. One you start sensing other chakra. Keep focusing even when they walk off or change position. Try to sense chakra as far as possible. Repeat the exercise. After that, you can try to sense in all directions or try chakra sensing only in one direction" He replied sagely.



He is so intelligent.



"You figure out the chakra sensing method on your own just now" Mido said surprised, making a face that she makes whenever Kaito does something amazing.



Hara Sensei POV

Hara had been teaching for thirty-seven years.

He had seen hundreds of students pass through his classroom—some talented, some mediocre, some so hopeless that he wondered why they bothered. He had seen prodigies rise and fall, had watched geniuses burn out and mediocrities persevere. He had learned, over the decades, to recognize potential when he saw it.

Gamon Hitome was a prodigy. That was obvious from the first day—the boy moved with the precision of someone who had been training since birth, his taijutsu flawless, his chakra control exceptional. He would be a great shinobi someday, Hara had no doubt.

Katsuro Chikamatsu was a genius. His mind worked in ways that Hara had rarely seen, analytical, strategic, always three steps ahead. He would be a brilliant tactician, perhaps even a leader.

he'd seen prodigies come and go. Children with natural talent, children with burning determination, children with fortunate bloodlines.

But Kaito...

Kaito was something else entirely. Kaito was different. Unsettlingly different.



Hara had noticed him early during the first running exercise, when the boy had finished seventh out of a hundred students. Not the best, certainly. Not the fastest or the strongest. But there was something about him—something in the way he moved, the way he watched, the way he seemed to understand things that other children didn't.

Hara had kept an eye on him after that.

The boy was quiet. He didn't play with the other children, didn't socialize, didn't do any of the things that normal children did. He simply... observed. And Learned.

It was unsettling, in a way. No child should be that controlled, that disciplined, that adult. But Hara had seen stranger things in his decades as a shinobi. He had learned not to question gifts when they appeared.

And Kaito was gifted.



When he has tried to sense his chakra, he had more chakra for an civilian , his yang chakra was more pronounced with a earthy feel that even a non sensor could feel it.

His chakra control was average class, but still better than a civilian. His theoretical knowledge was great enough to rank him third in theory exams of first year. Yet from second year his answers in exams became perfect. His taijutsu was... improving. Rapidly.

Too rapidly. When he had compared his previous four-year exams and this year test, he had observed that even his rate of learning has increased.

Hara had watched Kaito spar with the clan children—Gamon, Katsuro, Chika, Kagerou. He had seen the boy lose, again and again, and adapt.

The elective selections forms came in the first class of fifth year. Hara wasn't surprised by Kaito's choices—Medical and Poison. A combination that could save lives or end them with equal efficiency. What surprised him was Mido and Hiro choices to take unconventional paths. He later learned that Kaito had apparently convinced both

Mido: Fuinjutsu and Trapping. Hiro: Bukijutsu and Kenjutsu.

Smart. Extremely smart. Kaito had managed to— ensure his friends wouldn't be stuck in predictable roles, create synergies between their skill sets and position them for long-term survival.

He'd never seen a student think like that. Never seen one who could look at two other children and not only see what they were, but what they could become—and chart the path to get there.



At the fifth-year survival exercise, he had seen something else, something that made him pause.

Hara had been observing the students from a distance, tracking their progress through the deep desert. Most of them were struggling the deep desert was brutal, unforgiving, deadly. Some had already failed, their bodies recovered by the rescue teams.

But Kaito was thriving.

Hara watched as the boy moved through the dunes, his movements fluid and precise. He watched as Kaito found water, found shelter, found food. He watched as Kaito avoided predators, navigated sandstorms, survived.

And then he saw something that made him realized how powerful his earth affinity was.

Kaito was manipulating the earth and sand, shaping it with his hands, moving it with his will with ease without using any jutsus. Earth manipulation through chakra alone without handseals was like nothing Hara had ever seen before. He had heard the rumors that Kazekage can do it.

Kaito was the kind of genius that defied explanation. Odd, strange, unsettling and also brilliant—more brilliant than any student Hara had ever taught. And brilliance, in Hara's experience, was worth protecting. Perhaps he have some new kind of kekkei- genkai.

Few months later, his chakra have grown and his chakra control have improved. When he tried to sense his chakra, his chakra has grown… balanced and yin chakra has grown almost equal to yang chakra. His chakra gave a unique, mysterious feeling.

He watched Kaito from a distance, observed his growth, monitored his progress. He noted the boy's increasing chakra reserves—larger than they should be, denser than they should be, more than they should be. He noted the boy's improving taijutsu—faster, stronger, more precise

Hara had been reviewing student files when he noticed the mark on Kaito's record—a note from Kurumi, the infiltration instructor, flagging the boy as a potential loyalty risk and possible flight risk.

A flight risk, Hara thought, his jaw tightening. Based on what evidence?

He read the note carefully, his anger growing with every word. Kurumi had cited Kaito's "unusual behavior," his "secretive nature," his "lack of social integration." She had suggested that the boy might be a spy, an infiltrator, a threat to the village.

Idiot, Hara thought. Blind, stupid idiot.

He knew what Kurumi was doing. She was afraid—afraid of Kaito's genius and potential. Kaito's victories against clan kids had made her nervous and she was feeling inferior.

He found Kurumi in the instructors' lounge, reviewing her own notes. She looked up as he entered, her expression wary.

"Hara-sensei," she said. "What can I do for you?"

"You can explain this." He held up Kaito's file. "Why did you mark him as a flight risk?"

Kurumi's eyes narrowed. "I have concerns about his loyalty. His behavior is—"

"His behavior is that of a genius," Hara interrupted. "A prodigy. Someone who sees the world differently than the rest of us."

"That doesn't mean he's not a threat."

"It doesn't mean he is." Hara stepped closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.

Kurumi stiffened. "I know what I saw."

"You saw what you wanted to see. You saw a child who was different, a orphan civilian who was better than clan kids and you decided he was dangerous. You didn't bother to understand him. He is a prodigy and yet you just put a negative mark on his file."

"He's hiding something."

"Everyone is hiding something!" Hara slammed the file on the table. "Every shinobi in this village worth anything is hiding something. That doesn't make us traitors."

Kurumi was silent for a long moment. 'Then, what do you want me to do?"

"Nothing and if I found you did this because of clan politics, I will take this matter directly to Kazekage and explain how one of his instructors is harassing a student based on nothing but inferiority complex and clan interference."

"Tell me, which clan put you on this."

Kurumi stared at him, her expression unreadable. "No one did".

Hara turned to leave, then paused. "One more thing."

"What?"

"Kaito is odd and strange. Different perhaps. But that's part of the parcel of being a prodigy. Every genius I have ever met has been odd in some way. It's what makes them special." He met her eyes. "If you can't see that—if you can't recognize talent when it's staring you in the face—then maybe you're in the wrong profession."

He walked out without waiting for a response.

Kaito had the will to be great.

He is going to change things for Sunagakure, Hara thought. He is going to change everything.

Hara sat in his chair for a long time after that, staring at the door.

He pulled out his brush and began writing a letter to the Academy Headmaster.

"Regarding student Kaito..."

Then he fed it into the small brazier beside his desk, watching the flames consume the paper.

Some secrets were better left unspoken, he decided.