Kumogakure was, to your knowledge, a slightly strange hidden village. It was the youngest of the Great Five, and while it was the most powerful, it did not find its power in relying on Bloodlines like the other Great Villages. Part of that was the simply disparity of skill between Kumo and the other villages, we had no need for Bloodlines, but another part of that was a simple fact that Kumo did not have many Bloodlines.

  While it did have Clans, some of which were incredibly powerful and influential with illustrious bloodlines, they did not have Bloodlines. Their children were faster, stronger, and more skilled because they were trained that way, not because by being their children they had some innate feature that separated them from other humans.

  This, according to the history books was because unlike other Villages, that were formed predominantly by Ninja Clans, Kumo was formed predominantly by Samurai Clans. Well somewhat, Samurai clans who at some point had become indistinguishable from Shinobi clans.

  Its effect on the Village was deep and pervasive, and it is difficult to really articulate the true depth of the cultural impact. Though, there are a few very obvious effects.

  The primary one was where Kumo's main source of income came from. Supplementing the border guard of less powerful neighbours. From their immediate neighbours, such as the land of Frost, and Rice, to neighbours across the Kasumi Straight, like the land of Sky, and Honey.

  Part of Kumo's ability to partake in the trade was due to its massive population, despite living in the mountains, they had numerous tributary villages, and spent a great deal of time scouting talent from them. You were scouted out this way.

  Part of it was the trust put into Kumo by its less powerful neighbours, one that they had never abused, acting in full capacity as demanded as border guard even in times of potential conflicts of interest.

  Both stemmed from the influence of the Samurai roots. The first is due to how aggressively Samurai Clans recruited during the warring state periods to keep up with the Shinobi, and the second is due to the inherent honour behind the ideals of Bushido.

  Left unsaid, was that most Samurai Clans that become Shinobi clans do so having abandoned Bushido at some point.

  You suppose what you were trying to say was, was that Samurai had greatly influenced the perception and the actions of Kumogakure. This probably explained rather succinctly why the academy had very detailed instructions on Kyūjutsu, despite it rarely being a Ninja skill honed.

  Slowly you breathe in, your feet just beyond shoulder-width apart, your body perfectly perpendicular to your target. Slowly you raise your bow in front of you, as your eyes remain staring at your side, staring down the target. Once it reaches its apex, held above your head, you slowly begin to draw the string taut, lowering the bow into position as you do.

  You breathe out, and loose.

  The arrow buries itself through your target, and your lips twitch slightly, knowing that you had just broken another arrow.

  The lessons held in the Academies scrolls on Kyūjutsu were... interesting. Much like Kazedo, there was a great deal of philosophy behind them, and it was clear that many exercises were not meant to be used for combat, but to condition the mind for a certain sort of thought.

  It was an interesting perspective on something that you had known for much of your life. Your father had made, and taught you how to use a bow, when you were three. To your father the bow has always been a means to the end, to execute the only strike he needed for his hunt. It could be a fishing rod with a piece of razor attached to the end, and it would be the same to him.

  As a whole, there was a great deal that was not entirely useful to leveraging Kyūjutsu as a combat art. But, that was not the intent of the scrolls, like you had already established, it was about establishing a certain way of thought. Those thoughts, those ideas behind what it means to fire a bow, some of them, not all, were what you were really after practising like this.

  You breathe in and draw again.

  It was slow going, but of course, it would be. This sort of thing was a matter of years for the average person, and you were already straying from how it is supposed to be learned, so you could learn what you wanted to learn.

  Maybe it was a reductive way of learning, maybe you should have put more effort into learning everything about Kyūjutsu. But as it stood? You were rather satisfied with how you were learning.

  -

  It was a dark Wednesday, and where you were, far above the clouds, you could hear the distant rumble of a storm.

  But you did not let it bother you, ignoring the greater chill in the air, as you slowly went about dragging your water stone along the edge of your short sword.

  Perhaps you should have gone inside, it was after you had finished practice, and the moon hung high in the sky. But something was calming about sitting seiza underneath it, only the rasp of steel on stone to keep you company.

  Asides from the relaxing nature of it, it was also one of the few moments you had alone purely to your own thoughts. Uncoloured by the press of training, or the worries of combat.

  You... you had a few thoughts that you needed to deal with. The first was your birthday, you were turning nine soon, less than a week away.

  No one currently knew that, and you are not sure if you wanted to change that. Your instructors probably knew, but they had made it clear more than once they had no care for anyone's birthday.

  The second, and more important was one you had been struggling with for a while now.

  Mother was pregnant.

  Your father had already hunted a White Deer and planted your siblings lifetree, the sapling quickly sprouting into a flowering tree. An auspicious sign, one you knew your father would be glad to see.

  The last time he planted a lifetree it wilted within the week.

  Slowly you breathe out, you were going to have a sibling. A little sister to watch over however you were going to manage that so far above the clouds as you were.

  You had no idea how to feel about that.

  "Penny for ya thoughts?" Your hands stiffen against your thigh, as a presence is suddenly there, and a voice breaks your silent thoughts.

  You turn your head slightly, towards the source of the voice. It was a boy not much older than you, and in the dark of the night, even with the pale moonlight, you could not swear whether he had skin as pale as paper, or skin as black as soil, only his grey eyes, that seemed to storm in the dark stood out. For a moment the two of you just stare at each other, silently.

  Then you blink at him.

  He blinks at you.

  He frowns, you smirk.

  "Did ya not hear me? What's going on in that serious noggin of yours?" You glance away from the other boy, towards the academy behind him. Your smirk falls.

  "My mother is pregnant". You study the field around you, as you slowly pack away your Waterstone, pressing it into its box alongside the water bottle.

  "A little sister to spoil eh? What are ya worried you ain't gonna be good enough brother or something?" You force your breath to stay even, you had not mentioned it would be a sister. You had told no one it was a flowering lifetree, and the number of people who would know what that means would number in only a few dozen.

  "It could be a brother". You say lightly, your short sword flashing in the moonlight as you cut through the air, a single strike before you sheathed it, cutting through the meat of your thumb before you did so. A more ostentatious gesture than you usually do, but... it felt right in this moment.

  The other boy chuckles, knowingly. You resist frowning.

  "What is your name?" Your hardwood sheath clack against your side, as you drop it, eyes intent on him as you waited for a reply.

  "Kenzo, at your service". His voice loses the rough edge of an uneducated street child's cadence. Smooth and rich, as he lies to you.

  "Pleasure to make your acquaintance". You nod at him, rising from your sitting position, hand beating a rhythm into the sheath of your blade.

  "Are you not going to introduce yourself?" His voice is even on the wind, which seems to pick up ever so slightly as he speaks. For a moment you just ignore him, taking several long paces towards the academy, the biting chill of the wind suddenly not so ignorable. "A rather rude action".

  You pause and glance towards the moon.

  "I'm sorry". Your smile is tight, and despite not looking at him in the slightest you knew that he could see it. "Let me give you the only introduction to me you will ever need". Your thumb presses against the tsuba, forcing it up just far enough so the steel would rasp against the wood. "Please, never pry into my family".

  "Ya know, that would be a lot more threatening if ya didn't say please". The wind stills, the chill on your bones wavered, as the street accent made a return.

  "I'll keep that in mind". You glance away from the moon and begin making your way back towards the academy again.

  When you crossed back into the threshold of the academy, you glanced back, and exactly as you expected Kenzo was no longer there. You shake your head, and head to the dorm.

  You met "Kenzo" a few more times as the months wore on, always late at night as you were puzzling over something, always in lighting where you could never truly be certain what he looked like, with a new name to lie about each time. He stayed away from mentioning your family again, instead of asking other questions, about your training, about the academy. About what you thought about Kumo.

  He once claimed to be an academy student. You broke into the records room the next night and attempted to find someone with his eyes.

  But you already knew the answer would be there was no one. He laughed at you, next time you saw him, asking how someone could fall for such an obvious trick.

  It was a strange relationship you had with him. His presence was not always grating, but there was always an edge to it. His lies were sometimes amusing besides, and on occasion, he would make some insight into your training or your schooling that would change the way you looked at both. Some part of you would almost call him a very intermittent friend.

  But you never forgot that first night.

  -

  The instructors' words are law.

  There was some degree of written rules, actions taken by prior generations that some instructors never wanted to be repeated by ignorance.

  But even they buckled and were waved away the moment an instructor told you to do something. It did not matter if no student was allowed to fight outside of the designated arena's and the designated time, if an instructor told you to fight, you fought.

  The instructors did not give the academy their full attention.

  Once you had thought that Kusarihai-sensei was the only permanent fixture of the academy, that changed a month after your sixth anniversary at the academy, a few weeks after your first meeting of "Kenzo". He simply never showed up to classes again, replaced by Saruoka-sensei, a grim-faced brunette.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  Sometimes you like to think you spot your once sensei darting about the peaks of Kumo, blurring from one building to another.

  There were no permanent fixtures at the Academy, and the instructors treated it as such. They followed the curriculum zealously and left the student to work out the details after. They had other things to do, their next job to prepare for.

  For some students, that did not matter. Those with homes close enough to the academy that they could find their way home, and still be back in time for their next lessons. Usually clan kids, or second sons of wealthy merchants.

  For those that were forced to stay in the academy dorms? It created a strange atmosphere of authoritarian anarchy. At any moment an instructor could decide they were dissatisfied with the way you were conducting your life, and demand you fix it. Otherwise, you were left to manage your life how you saw fit.

  While no student was stupid enough to form a gang under those conditions, it was outlawed by one of the few written rules of the academy, certain understandings did come to be. Area's claimed by older or younger students places that certain people frequented and would prefer others did not join them in.

  Territory in all by name, bartered and taken by presence and disapproving stares.

  You were something of a loner. You did interact with your peers on occasion, even had a few friends; Yashi, for instance, was the closest thing you had to a best friend, despite his vast preference for Suzukuma over you. But usually, you kept to yourself, training with a ravenous drive that few other students could keep up with.

  It made carving out your own territory difficult, you would rarely have the weight of numbers on your side.

  But you did have respect placed next to your name. While few students could keep up with your self-wrought ceaseless drive to improve, there were none who did not respect it. That aside, there was also the matter of your fight against Torishi, a girl from a clan widely respected for their Kenjutsu, while using Kenjutsu. It was an impressive feat to the by and large non-clan students that were left behind at the academy while their clan peers left to their own homes.

  It did not earn you much, but it did earn you a small corner of the outermost open-air living area. Just enough that when you slipped away on the weekend and bought some pots and the cheapest seeds you could, you had space for it all.

  The sense of accomplishment and pride you felt when you first got your succulents to sprout was greater than you really expected. There was just a visceral satisfaction in watching something you cared for grow and become strong.

  Though gardening was rewarding even outside the feeling of satisfaction, the tomato's you grew was delicious. Maybe when you got your own place you would try to grow more of your own food.

  -

  You were being tested.

  At first, you had not noticed, seeing the sudden shift in the difficulty of your work as another plateau of the academies curriculum, one of many that the new year brought. The academy was not very well suited to gradual increases in the complexity of the subject matter it covered. Instead of a gradual learning curve, it was a learning cliff, where students would lurch to a harder topic, and stay there while the stray's caught up, before doing it again.

  You are not sure if that was an intentional design or not. A sink or swim approach that forced the students to deal with stressful changes in circumstance.

  It was only a few days later, the very next test, when you noticed that the difficulty continued to mount, and your peers continue to coast along without difficulty. Stealing one of your peers' tests was probably easier than it really should have been, and seeing the disparity between your questions confirmed your suspicions.

  You were being tested, and the other students were not being tested alongside you.

  The possibility of being moved up classes, or graduating early had always existed in your mind. But you always thought if it was happening, you would be told.

  You suppose it did not matter if you were being told or not, you were a Ninja, your consent in many things did not matter. Besides, you managed to figure it out on your own, so there was really no harm done in the end.

  Then you were told that Torishi was slated to graduate early. The instructors informed the girl in the middle of class, and it threw everything into a shaded suspicion again.

  There was not much difference between what she was experiencing, and what you had been experiencing for the past two weeks. But she knew about it, and you did not.

  Was it some sort of Clan thing? Did the instructors forget to tell you? Or was it something different?

  Another few days passed, more tests slipped to you surreptitiously, while they were being openly given to Torishi. Then you were called into one of the inner arena's, places you only knew about through sparing conversations with the older students.

  There were four men inside and one "student". Two of the men wore Chūnin vests, similar to many of the instructors you had been dealing with at the academy. One of the men wore simple training gear, standing on the far side of the arena, Kumo Hitai-ate shining in the bright, sterile light of the arena.

  The last was a short, thickly haired, dark-skinned man, without any of the trappings of the others in the room. Yet there was no mistaking him as anything but a Ninja. You could go on at length about the lean muscles packed into his body, or the way he seemed to be aware of everything in the room.

  But the only thing you needed to comment on, was the predatory grace that filled his slightest movement. Even just the flex of his hand to tell you to move into the arena was filled with such intent, and purpose that it had the hairs on the back of your neck rising.

  He was dangerous. Maybe that was obvious, but it was true.

  And as you stood there, his fierce eyes glaring down on you as the two Chūnin went about laying down the rules and stipulations of the match in a decidedly official manner, you suddenly felt a lot less confident about your early graduation.

  Your eyes slid to the other Ninja standing in the arena with you, he was taller than you, clearly mid-teens. A Genin if you had to guess, or maybe a Chūnin pretending to be. He had several bulging weapons pouches slung over his body, but they looked uncomfortable on him, as he shifted underneath their unfamiliar weight. He was not equipped with his usual gear.

  Your opponent's hip cocked, his right hand clutching at something in the air for a moment. Looking for a familiar weapon that was being denied him.

  Good, you were confident in your skills, but beating an established Genin without the Genin holding back in some way would be difficult.

  You were already going to have to overcome the issues of him probably being stronger than you, with clearly more reach. Not even to mention the likelihood that he had Ninjutsu beyond the absolute basics to his name.

  You breathe in slowly. If you were going to be able to do this, you would need to focus. The question then was, did you really want to focus?

  Something about this felt off to you. Something about the man watching you felt dangerous. You thought before about how a Ninja's consent in many things did not matter. That was not entirely true, a Ninja's open consent did not matter, but Ninja's were not taught to operate in the open. It was clear this was a test of your combat ability, and it seemed your say in things would come down to if you decided you wanted to perform here.

  Did you?

  You scoff to yourself, of course you did.

  -

  You watch the Genin for a long moment, hearing in the background as the Chūnin finished their officiating.

  If you were going to do this - and you were going to do this - then you needed to think.

  You had noticed before that the other man had been reaching for a weapon, a specific weapon. He had a tanto resting by his side but that, like much of the pouches he had, rested uneasily, the Genin adjusting it every few moments.

  Nor did it seem like he was reaching for a blade. It seemed like a weapon with a longer hilt, or perhaps even a shaft. A dagger-axe maybe? Maybe a Nagitana? As you ran through the polearms you knew, you started feeling more confident in your assessment. While you had little experience seeing those weapons in action, you knew what they were intended to do.

  The Genin, Saruoka Yuji - related to Saruoka-sensei maybe? - if the Chūnin's announcement was correct, would be used to keeping opponents at range, and then he would either put pressure on them with fast thrusts or build significant force behind a wide swing.

  Your eyes flick to the pouches at his side, as he adjusts them. More than likely he did not actually use much Shurikenjutsu, instead, he would try to stay in the murky waters of medium-range, where shuriken and Kunai took just slightly too long to grab to be useful.

  His tanto was most likely a last resort weapon if his primary weapon was damaged, or someone got, and stayed, inside his guard. Which meant it was most likely the weapon he was second most comfortable with and implied that he was not confident enough in his Taijutsu to rely on that instead.

  The two of you make the seal of conflict, you using your offhand as your primary, as you drew closer to the official beginning. He was right-handed if you could trust what hand he used to reach for his absent weapon, and the hand he used to primarily form the seal of conflict.

  Right-handed, used to a longer reach, and most likely not confident in his Taijutsu, or his Shurikenjutsu. Some of them were tenuous assumptions, but you were happy to trust your gut on them.

  Now the question was, how did you leverage that knowledge to your advantage?

  "HAJIME!" Your legs flex underneath you, as you throw yourself backwards, your bow sliding off your shoulders, an arrow knocked in seconds.

  The Genin's eyes widen, and for a moment he seems to deliberate between pursuing you and digging a hand into his Kunai pouches. Your first arrow almost slamming into his throat made that decision for him.

  His Tanto flashes in the stark light of the arena, cutting through your second arrow, which was only heartbeats behind the first. He lowers himself into a crouch as you adjust your aim, before bursting forward, eating into the distance you had made in moments.

  You manage to loose two more arrows, the first forcing the Genin to jerk to the right to avoid your arrow from splitting his thigh in half. The second took advantage of his clumsy dodge, burying itself into the Genin's upper arm. It almost took you by surprise that aside from gritting his teeth, the other man pushes straight through it.

  Thankfully it still bought you enough time to re-sling your bow over your shoulder and draw your short sword. Not a moment too soon, as the moment your steel hit the open air you were being hammered. Despite his injury, Saruoka kept up a furious assault, and with his superior reach, you had few chances to slip past it to put him on the defensive. While you would not go so far as to say his Kenjutsu was impeccable, it was good, better than yours even. The teen also knew when he had an advantage and how to use it.

  But despite that, you found yourself in a supremely comfortable position. Saruoka's greater reach? His greater skill? His ceaseless assault? It played straight into the strengths of Kazedo. It was a style designed for using a shorter weapon, for having shorter reach, and for turning aside a ceaseless advance.

  Saruoka was a better swordsman than you, but when it came to style? You simply had him beat.

  When another clash of furious steel fails to find any ground on your flowing movement, the older boy decides to change up the fight, slamming his blade into your own, his superior strength forcing you back and creating space.

  You watch as his hands blur through hand seals, catching only a few of a dozen, Ox, hare and snake. A lightning technique, you realize a moment before his tanto sparks, a thin sheen of light weakly encasing it.

  Then he was on you again, his furious assault resumed, his blade weakly sparking in the air with every swing.

  But he had made a mistake, a blunder into your own strength. He had given you room to collect yourself, to process the fight and pour over how he fought.

  Simply put, he had given you the time to study your hunt.

  Where before you had been slipping around his assault, turning it aside despite his superior skill because he was playing into the strengths of Kazedo, now you were dancing around him.

  Every flash of his blade was moments too late, every twist of his feet underneath him already accounted for. His reach became a non-factor, you already knew how he leveraged it, could see the openings and weaknesses.

  It did not matter that his short dagger sparked in the air every few moments, because his dagger never got to the point of ever being able to hit anything.

  The first cut of your duel was when you deflected his tanto to the side after what should have been a brutal overhead swing, stepping inside his guard as he was already off-balance, your blade screaming through the air and slicing through the flesh and veins in the back of his shoulder.

  From there, it was already pointless for him. With the arrow still buried in him, and his right shoulder openly weeping blood, you had all but crippled his dominant hand.

  Soon enough the teen was forced into an awkward nitō, drawing a Kunai from his pouch to simply give himself an avenue to possibly attack, with his right hand and tanto forced into such a limited range of motion.

  Not that it helped him in the slightest, you had your clear advantage, and like him you knew how to take advantage of it, forcing him to be constantly moving to avoid another debilitating slice of your sword. Dragging his defences to the limit, until his range of motion failed him and you crippled him further.

  Your eyes met his, panicked chestnut desperately trying to read you, desperately trying to get an insight into the fight that would rescue him. He knew he was hurtling towards a defeat, and he also knew there was nothing he could do about it.

  A smirk crosses your face, your leg lashing out, slamming into the side of his knee as he was forced to desperately twist to catch your blade with his own. He crumbles instantly, falling into an awkward roll to get away from you

  "Owari!" You pause before you go to follow, eyes flicking up to the other ninja watching. Saruoka scrambled to his feet, nursing his ribs, one of the earlier cuts you left on him. He stares at you wide-eyed for a moment, and you give him a nod.

  He might not have landed a single blow on you, but you could acknowledge he was at least skilled. You wonder how the fight would have gone if he actually had his preferred weapon.

  "Saruoka! Report to Etsu-sensei". Your opponent nods at the Chūnin, and give a very stiff bow to the unadorned man. Then, he limps out of the room, leaving you alone with the remaining three men.

  You flick your attention from each man in turn, trying to figure out what they thought of the fight. One of the Chūnin seemed impressed, writing furiously on some sort of clipboard, but the other Chūnin looked almost irritated, blue eyes glaring at the air, lips pressed into a thin line. You got nothing from the last man and studying him for too long left you uncomfortable.

  "Academy Student Shinrindō! Your testing scores within the academy have been impressive enough to warrant outside attention". The irritated Chūnin, steps forward, scratching at a patchy beard as he did so. "There is one final test, to be made, to see your resilience in the face of adversity". Resilience in the face of adversity? Your eyes flicked between the two Chūnin, you think you knew where this was going. "In order to test such a trait, you must challenge one of the examiners. You are not expected to win this fight".

  Your study both for a moment, but unlike the Genin, at this distance, it was difficult to tell anything about either man. The Chūnin with the clipboard had murky green hair and seemed like he was impressed with you, maybe that would mean he would be less inclined to slap you around? Or would it simply mean he would take you more seriously? At the very least, he was not openly angry and did not seem like he was looking for the opportunity to use you as some form of stress relief.

  But that being said, this was still a test. Did you want the patchy-beard man to mark you down simply because he was in a bad mood?

  Then your eyes come to rest on the third man. You had three examiners did you not?

  You could already tell it was a bad idea, as you met the dark-skinned man's fierce eyes, feeling like a rabbit before a dragon. He was clearly in a class of his own compared to the Chūnin, perhaps a Jōnin of some kind. His holding back would probably be the same as one of the Chūnin going as hard as they could.

  But still, a part of you demanded you went for it. Demanded you approach to take on the greatest challenges and riskiest paths.