I didn't have time to celebrate. The sun was still up.
After leaving my belongings in the room, I immediately turned back to the door. I had my student ID in my pocket. That piece of laminated paper was my most valuable asset since waking up in the void. It granted me access to the Academy's public archives.
I navigated the streets back toward the Hokage Monument, my mind buzzing with anticipation.
The Academy library was housed in the eastern wing of the new complex. After walking through the door, I was greeted by a wide room, lined with towering wooden bookshelves and rows of reading desks.
I approached the front desk. An elderly librarian with thick glasses barely glanced at me as I slid my ID card across the counter.
"First year?" the librarian asked, stamping a record.
"Yes, sir." I replied politely.
"Section A and B only" he grunted, sliding the card back. "Everything past the iron grate is restricted to Genin and above. Don't try to sneak back there. If I catch you, I'll have you expelled before dinner."
"Understood."
I walked into section A. The restriction made perfect sense, since Konoha wouldn't just leave lethal elemental jutsu for emotional six-year-olds to browse.
Section A was entirely theoretical. It held the curated history of the village, geographical maps of the Five Great Nations, and basic anatomical textbooks. I skimmed the titles, committing their locations to memory, but I didn't stop. I moved to section B.
This was the practical application section.
The shelves here were sparser. I scanned them, pulling three specific scrolls and a thick book. I carried them to an empty reading desk in the corner, far from the few other older students studying in the room, and sat down.
The first book was titled: The Fundamentals of Chakra Molding: The Twelve Seals.
For all my brutal conditioning and advanced chakra control on the rushing river, I was entirely illiterate when it came to actual ninjutsu. I could expel chakra from my feet, but I couldn't shape it.
I opened the book. The illustrations detailed the twelve basic hand seals, named after the zodiac animals: Bird, Boar, Dog, Dragon, Hare, Horse, Monkey, Ox, Ram, Rat, Snake, and Tiger.
According to the text, hand seals were essentially a programming language for chakra. When a shinobi formed a specific seal, it triggered a sequence of contractions in the chakra pathways. These contractions acted as physical conduits, forcing the chakra in the coils to mold into precise shapes and frequencies.
I spent the next two hours memorizing the finger placements. I practiced them under the desk, slowly twisting my small fingers into the knots. It was incredibly frustrating. My adult mind understood the shapes, but it was difficult to execute them with my hands.
Once I had the crude muscle memory established, I opened the first jutsu scroll.
E-Rank: The Clone Technique
It was one of the fundamental techniques in the Academy. The scroll detailed: by utilizing Yin release, the user molds their chakra to create an intangible copy of themselves. It had no physical substance and cast no shadow, serving merely as a visual decoy.
The required seals were Ram, Tiger, and Snake.
I memorized the chakra flow diagrams and moved to the next scroll.
E-Rank: The Tranquil Breath Technique
This was a utility jutsu. It didn't create an illusion or deal damage. Instead, the user cycled chakra through their own system, lowering their heart rate and stabilizing their breathing. It was designed to help panicked genin to calm down during stealth missions.
I memorized the text, and once again moved to the next scroll.
E-Rank: Body Replacement Technique.
In the anime, Kawarimi was often depicted as a borderline space-time jutsu, a miraculous teleportation that saved a ninja from a lethal blow. Reading the scroll, I realized that it was far more grounded and way more difficult to execute.
It was not teleportation. It was a high-speed movement technique combined with optical misdirection. It required the user to utilize a micro-burst of chakra, essentially a lower-grade Body Flicker, to launch themselves out of the path of an incoming attack.
Simultaneously, the user swapped their physical position with a pre-prepared object, usually a log or a nearby item, leaving it behind to absorb the impact of the enemy's strike.
It required spatial awareness, sharp reflexes, and the ability to mold chakra milliseconds before impact. If your timing was off by a fraction of a second, you simply died holding a piece of wood.
I noted the required hand seals: Tiger, Boar, Ox, Dog, Snake.
I retained the content, rolled the scrolls back up, and returned them to the shelves. I didn't check them out. I didn't want a paper trail at the front desk documenting what I was studying.
The sun was setting as I walked back to my apartment. I used a fraction of my monthly stipend to buy a bag of rice, a carton of eggs, and a small slab of fish from a street vendor.
Back in the silence of my room, I ate my meal and immediately set to work.
I stood in the center of the room, facing the blank wall.
"Clone Technique" I whispered.
I raised my hands to my chest. Ram. Snake. Tiger.
I engaged the dense pool of chakra in my core, attempting to pull it up and mold it through the triggers of the hand seals.
Poof.
A small cloud of white smoke erupted to my left. As the smoke cleared, I stared at the result. Lying on the floorboards was a gelatinous blob of pale flesh. It had one eye sliding off its face and no limbs.
It popped out of existence a second later.
I frowned, lowering my hands. The execution was garbage.
Jutsu requires shaping. I had poured way too much raw physical energy into the technique, completely unbalacing the ratio of spiritual Yin chakra required to create an optical illusion.
I reset my stance. Ram. Snake. Tiger.
Poof.
I looked at it. The clone stood upright, with features identical to mine.
I continued to push through, trying to conjure one more clone. With the same motion, another one appeared. Running a test, I confirmed my thoughts.
As expected, illusions couldn't attack me and neither could they attack themselves since they had no physical substance.
What a shame.
Exhausted, I collapsed into my bed a few hours before dawn, sleeping heavily until the ring of the alarm clock I had purchased pulled me back to consciousness.
It was 07:00 in the morning. The first day of the Academy.
I washed my face, dressed in my standard gray shirt and trousers, and walked out into the morning air.
The Academy corridors were buzzing with hundreds of children. I navigated the hallways to my designated location.
Class 1-A was located on the second floor of the main building. I slid the wooden door open and entered.
The classroom was built like an amphitheater, with tiered rows of long wooden desks descending toward a large chalkboard at the front.
The back rows, offering the best vantage point and the most privacy had been immediately claimed by the clan children. I recognized the Inuzuka boy and the Hyuuga girl from the running track. They sat together, chatting comfortably.
Sitting in the very back corner, staring blankly out the window and ignoring everyone around him, was Itachi Uchiha.
I didn't look at him twice. I moved toward the middle rows, selecting a desk near the wall. It was the perfect position for aggressive mediocrity. Visible enough to be counted, obscure enough to be forgotten.
I set my notebook on the desk and sat down.
"Hey! Raijin!"
I suppressed a sigh. I turned my head.
Ken, the civilian boy, was waving frantically from the front row. Before I could look away, he scrambled up the steps and dropped into the empty seat directly to my right.
"I didn't know you made class A!" Ken beamed, unpacking a ridiculous amount of pencils from his bag. "My dad almost cried when I showed him the acceptance paper. He said I'm going to be a great shinobi. Did your parents cry?"
"I don't have parents" I said, blankly.
Ken blinked, his cheerful expression faltering for a fraction of a second. "Oh. Right. Sorry." He paused, but the silence only lasted a moment before his nervous energy won out. "Well, anyway, I'm glad you're here. You helped me on the track. If you didn't tell me how to breathe correctly, I would be smelting iron now."
I didn't respond. I simply faced forward.
Ken's presence was incredibly annoying, but I didn't mind it. Associating with him would actually be a smarter decision. Anyone looking at our desk would see a nervous civilian child and his quiet, unremarkable friend. We were background noise.
The wooden door at the front of the classroom suddenly slammed shut with an echoing crack.
The chatter in the room instantly died.
An instructor stood at the front podium. It wasn't the previous proctor. This man was younger, with sharp eyes, a trimmed beard, and a standard flak jacket.
"Sit up straight" he commanded.
Thirty six-year-olds snapped to attention.
"I am Daiki. I will be your primary instructor for the next coming years" he said, his gaze sweeping over the desks. "You are Class 1-A. You are the elite of your generation. The village has invested significant resources into your development, and I expect a return on that investment."
He turned, picking up a piece of chalk, and wrote three large kanji on the blackboard.
The Will of Fire.
He turned back to face us.
"Before we teach you how to throw a kunai, before we teach you how to mold your chakra, you must understand why you're doing it" Daiki said, his voice dropping into a reverent tone.
"Konoha is not just a village. It is a family. The Will of Fire is the belief that every shinobi in this village loves, believes, and protects the village above all else. It is the philosophy that the older generation protects the younger, and the individual serves the whole."
He paced across the front of the room, locking eyes with several of the students.
"A true shinobi does not seek personal glory" Daiki continued. "A true shinobi is a tool of the village. The Fourth Hokage, Lord Minato, sacrificed his life to protect this family from the Nine-Tails. You are sitting in these desks because he gave his life for you."
"It is your duty to repay that debt with your own strength, and if necessary, your own lives."
Blah blah blah blah
Internally, I laughed at this whole presentation.
I had to recognize, though, it was a great indoctrination, I had to admire the efficiency of it. Weaponizing gratitude and frame their impending deaths as a 'sacred obligation'?
A true creation of a brainwashed army.
I glanced around the room out of the corner of my eye. Ken was staring at the instructor with wide, awe-struck eyes. The Inuzuka boy in the back was nodding solemnly. Even the civilian children looked captivated by that speech.
They were swallowing the propaganda whole.
I turned my eyes back to the chalkboard, staring at the kanji for the Will of Fire.
I would play the part. I would nod when required, I would recite their history, and I would feign absolute devotion to the village. As long as it didn't threaten my life, I did not care.
I knew that the Will of Fire was a beautiful, comforting lie told by dead men.
The only true law of this world was power.
The lecture continued for another hour, detailing the founding of the village by the First Hokage. When the bell rang, we had to transition to the courtyard, the students eagerly stood up.
"Come on, Raijin!" Ken said, grabbing his bag "Let's go get a good spot near the targets!"
I stood up, sliding my notebook into my pocket.
"Lead the way." I said quietly.