The Sunagakure Ninja Academy training grounds baked beneath the scorching late-June sun, heat waves visibly distorting the air above the sand.
Over thirty newly enrolled six-year-olds stood in a crooked line before their instructor, Sunada Shun. A harsh gust of wind swept across the field, driving fine, stinging grit against the children's faces.
"State your name and your dream. Starting with you," Sunada ordered, his voice flat and authoritative as he pointed at a boy near the front.
The boy immediately puffed out his chest. "Araki Ryo! I'm going to become a Jonin like Lord Reppu!"
A skinny, dark-haired boy next to him shouted right after, "Yotaka Arashi! I'll be the greatest trap ninja!"
"Akasuna Yumi..." mumbled a red-haired girl, nervously twisting the hem of her shirt. "I want to make puppets that can dance..."
When the instructor's gaze landed on the middle of the line, Sengoku paused for half a second. He softened his expression, mimicking the naive earnestness of the others. "Sengoku. I want to become a ninja who can protect the village."
It was a flawless, hollow lie. As a transmigrator, he felt absolutely no loyalty to Sunagakure or its people. His only real desire was to discover the absolute limits of his own strength in this dangerous new world.
Sunada closed his clipboard, sweeping a critical gaze over the rookies. "Physical fitness test begins now."
The first trial was push-ups. Araki Ryo started panting heavily at fifteen and collapsed into the sand at nineteen. Yotaka Arashi, however, executed twenty-five with perfect form, barely breaking a sweat. Akasuna Yumi managed twelve before her small face flushed a bright, strained red.
When it was Sengoku's turn, he dropped to the dirt. The first ten reps were standard. By the eleventh, his spindly, undernourished arms began to tremble. Sweat beaded on his forehead at fifteen. Pushing through the twentieth took every ounce of willpower he possessed. He eventually gave out at twenty-two, landing him in eighteenth place. When he tried to push himself back up to his feet, his muscles felt like jelly, nearly sending him face-first into the sand.
Sunada offered no time to recover. Pull-ups were next, and Sengoku fared even worse. By the third repetition, his biceps burned. By the fifth, a deep, sharp ache settled into his forearms. He maxed out at fourteen. When he dropped from the metal bar, his fingers shook so violently he couldn't even form a fist.
A brief pause to record scores was the only rest they received before the two-kilometer run began. Sengoku forced himself to keep pace with the leading group off the starting line, but a single lap was enough to break his rhythm. His breathing grew ragged. His legs felt like lead weights. One classmate after another breezed past him. He dragged his feet through the final hundred meters, his vision swimming, and nearly collapsed to his knees as he crossed the finish line. Coughing violently, he realized he had, once again, finished squarely in the middle of the pack.
When Sunada posted the overall rankings, Sengoku stared at the board in silence. His best event ranked fifteenth; his worst was nineteenth.
The physical gap between him and clan-born children like Yotaka Arashi was glaringly obvious. Even Araki Ryo, a fellow civilian orphan, outclassed him in raw strength.
Once dismissed, the students scattered. Araki patted his stomach and ran off to eat, while Yotaka and a few boys loudly dissected their test results. A group of girls crowded around Akasuna Yumi to praise her flexibility. Sengoku stood alone at the edge of the training grounds, looking down at his trembling hands.
A faint flicker of quiet frustration cut through his usual emotional detachment. If his body lacked natural talent, he would simply have to bridge the gap with relentless effort.
He resolved to stay behind and train, but his exhausted muscles refused to cooperate; he couldn't even manage a single pull-up. Instead, he unrolled his pouch, drew a kunai, and stood at the five-meter mark.
His first throw went wildly off course, embedding into the dirt. The second merely grazed the wooden target's edge. The third barely stuck in the outermost ring. He threw dozens of times, but his drained arms made every motion agonizingly clumsy. By the end, his grip was so weak the heavy iron blades nearly slipped from his fingers entirely.
As night fell over the village, Sengoku gathered his scattered weapons and walked back to his sparse stone house. Dinner consisted of the academy's official ration bars. They tasted like stale cardboard, but they were dense with much-needed calories and protein.
After eating, he lit his oil lamp. He spread out the basic literacy dictionary provided by the academy that morning, setting his parents' legacy scrolls right beside it.
Though he hadn't yet been taught the Chakra Extraction Method, mastering the theoretical knowledge was a necessary first step. Under the dim, yellow glow, he began cross-referencing the complex kanji. The dense text detailing chakra thread manipulation and tactical puppet theories slowly began to make sense.
He read haltingly, translating character by character, but soon found himself entirely absorbed in the mechanics of the shinobi arts. By the time he broke his focus, hours had slipped by.
He might possess mediocre talent in taijutsu, but chakra was the true foundation of this world's power. That logical realization brought him a measure of grim reassurance.
Blowing out the lamp, Sengoku lay back on his hard wooden bed. Every muscle in his body throbbed, a sharp, lingering reminder of his dismal physical limits. In this world, he was starting from the absolute bottom.
But tomorrow was the academy's first class on chakra. It was his first chance to truly level the playing field. He closed his eyes. Now that he had a steady supply of academy rations to fuel his body, there were no more excuses. Starting tomorrow, he would just have to train twice as hard as anyone else.