(Unedited)
The village was unusually quiet that morning.
Normally, Konoha was lively at dawn, shops opening, shinobi returning from night missions, academy students rushing to class, but the Third Great Shinobi War had cast a long, heavy shadow across everything. Even civilians walked the streets with hushed voices, as though sound itself might summon misfortune.
Yet for Toji Fushiguro, four years old and already restless from years of training, the world felt bright.
Today was his entrance exam.
He stood at the front gates of the Ninja Academy with an odd sense of nostalgia. He had never been here in this life, but the building's tall, slanted roof and wide wooden doors stirred memories from the anime he'd watched in his past life. Funny how things turn out, he thought.
Kids swarmed the entrance, maybe sixty of them, all four years old, though many looked younger due to nerves or late growth spurts. Two girls cried into their mother's clothing. A group of boys argued about which clan had the coolest jutsu. A Hyūga child watched silently from the side, stiff-backed and proud.
Toji stood between his parents.
Yue knelt to adjust his clothes for the third time. "Deep breaths, sweetheart. Don't rush anything. Just do your best"
Toji offered a tiny smile. "I know, Mom."
Kato placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You've worked hard. You'll do great also long as you try your best"
Toji nodded. He never had any intension of holding back, what would be the point. Donzo coming to kidnap him. Toji highly doubts he will not only is there a war going on, but he's only four so there's no evidence of true potential yet.
A loud whistle cut through the chatter. A chunin with grey hair and a scar across his chin stepped forward.
"ALL STUDENTS INSIDE! PARENTS, THIS WAY!"
Toji gave his parents one last look, Yue's proud smile, Kato's confident nod, before stepping through the Academy doors. His new life was officially beginning.
~~~~
The children were led around the Academy to a large dirt training field. A worn track curled around it like an oval loop. The chunin from before, apparently the lead proctor, lifted a clipboard.
"First test is stamina. Jog laps around the field. Stop only when you physically cannot continue. If you sit down or collapse, you're done. This helps us determine baseline conditioning."
A few kids whispered nervously. One small boy paled at the word collapse.
Toji inhaled slowly, letting the Constant Breathing technique he'd refined over the last year settle into his lungs. Not the full Demon Slayer styles those were out of his reach for now, but he has faith in himself and his talent to recreate them later in life.
The whistle blew.
The first lap looked like organized chaos. Children bumped into each other, tripped, complained, or sprinted full speed before quickly realizing that stamina mattered more than quickness. A girl with pigtails nearly face-planted from trying to run too fast. The proctors barely raised an eyebrow.
Toji held a balanced pace, light steps, steady posture, rhythmic breathing.
By the second lap, half the kids were already red-faced. By the third, most civilian children slowed to a walk or dropped out entirely, collapsing dramatically on the grass.
"Three laps is the civilian average," one proctor murmured. "Expected."
At lap six, only a handful of clan children remained. Inuzuka kids ran with dog-like enthusiasm, laughing breathlessly. An Aburame boy maintained a steady, efficient trot. Three Uchiha children ran with pride stiffening their spines. A Sarutobi girl, tall for her age, kept up with surprising grit.
Toji didn't bother looking at them. He focused inward.
In. Out. Steady.
His legs burned faintly, but the breathing soothed it. He'd trained harder than this every morning for a year.
By lap ten, only eight kids were left.
By lap fifteen, four.
Those four were clearly talented
An Uchiha boy around Toji's height, with eyes sharp as flint.
A quieter Uchiha who conserved energy well.
The determined Sarutobi girl.
And Toji.
The first Uchiha stumbled at lap sixteen. The Sarutobi girl dropped out at seventeen, gasping. The quieter Uchiha slowed, chest heaving, and sat down.
Toji kept going.
Lap eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
Only then did he stop, sweat dripping, heart thumping hard but steady. He bowed politely to the proctors before stepping aside.
The lead proctor blinked. "He's four?"
Another nodded slowly. "Got potential. Definitely."
Toji pretended he didn't hear them.
~~~~
The group was split in half. Those with unlocked chakra stood to the left. Those without lined up in front of a medical-ninja-type proctor who would unlock their chakra coils through gentle stimulation.
Toji joined the first group.
"Leaf exercise!" one chunin barked.
A bowl of leaves was passed around.
Most kids slapped them onto their foreheads, only to watch them fall almost instantly. Frustrated groans echoed across the yard. One child shouted that the leaf was "defective." Another blamed the wind.
"Stick it to your forehead and hold it for as long as you can"
Toji had already tuned them out. He pressed the leaf to his forehead, inhaled through his nose, and sent chakra upward, a steady, even flow that felt natural now. The leaf stuck immediately.
So Toji simply closed his eyes and waited patiently. He heard many of his future peers complain and cry out in surprise as they evidently dropped their leaves. When Toji did open his eyes to take a look around he wasn't surprised to see all the Civilian kids without their leaves, even a few clan kids had already dropped theirs.
Then a proctor calls out, "That's enough children you've all done well. You can drop the leaf's now"
Toji, along with a few clan kids, let their leaf float to the ground. Toji took a quick glance around. 8 kids other than me, not bad.
~~~~
The final test sprawled across the training field:
- balance beams
- swinging targets
- wooden platforms spaced at odd intervals
- a rope climb
- a narrow log roll
- low hurdles
- sand pits
- dummy traps that triggered sudden movements
Children went in groups of five.
The course was harder than expected. Kids fell, stumbled, and rolled beneath obstacles too slowly. One boy triggered a dummy trap and screamed so loudly a proctor winced.
When Toji's group was called, he stepped forward with composed confidence.
"Begin!"
He burst forward.
Balance beam first; he dashed across, arms out, steps sure and feather-light. Behind him, a girl fell off immediately with a yelp.
A swinging padded arm came from the left, Toji dipped beneath it, sliding smoothly without losing speed.
He leapt across the wooden platforms; one, two, three landing squarely in the center of each. Children behind him panicked, leaping too far or not enough.
Up the rope he climbed with speed that shocked even him. His body was small, but the constant pushups and gymnastics had made him stronger than the average clan child.
He reached the top, swung over, and dropped lightly onto the next platform.
A log roll came next. Kids always panicked here.
Toji didn't panic, he timed the roll, stepped lightly, adjusted his balance with controlled breathing, and sprinted across.
Finally, the unpredictable traps.
A wooden dummy shot out.
Toji twisted, pivoted around it, used the momentum to shift direction, and sprinted to the finish line.
He finished the course in one clean run.
No major mistakes. No stumbles. Just smooth execution.
~~~~
Parents crowded the exit gate where the proctors released the children.
Kato spotted Toji first. "There he is! How'd you do, champ?"
Yue rushed forward and dropped to her knees, pulling him into a hug. "You're sweating! Are you hurt? Did you fall?"
Toji shook his head. "I'm fine. The tests were good."
Kato grinned, clapping a hand on his son's shoulder. "From the looks on the proctors' faces? I think you smashed it."
Toji just smiled at his father. Yue looked like she might cry, a mixture of pride and worry. "You really worked hard this year. I'm glad it paid off."
Toji looked back at the Academy building. He wonders what he will learn within the following years, hopefully it won't get in the way of his own training.
~End