"Form two lines. Maintain an arm's length of distance" Daiki commanded, his voice firm.
He stood beside a series of large, heavy wooden crates. Thirty yards away, a row of circular targets with peeling red bullseyes was set up.
"Devotion to the village is meaningless if you cannot physically correspond to the demands" Daiki said, pacing slowly in front of us. "Today, we evaluate your baseline coordination and spatial awareness. Shurikenjutsu."
A nervous murmur rippled through the back half of the lines.
I stood behind Ken, keeping my posture relaxed. I didn't need to feign anxiety, Ken was exuding enough for the both of us. The boy was practically vibrating, his eyes darting between the heavy tool in the crates and the distant targets.
"It's too far" Ken whispered over his shoulder to me, his voice trembling. "I've only ever thrown rocks in the river. I'm going to hit a tree."
"Just focus on the center. Don't throw it from your shoulder." I murmured back, offering the bare minimum generic advice to act as a supportive friend.
Daiki began calling names.
The initial results were not exciting. The civilian children stepped up to the throwing line with clumsy, rigid postures. They gripped the shuriken like baseballs, relying entirely on momentum rather than the rotation of their hips and core.
The shuriken tumbled wildly through the air, hitting the dirt, or thudding into the outermost rings of the targets.
Daiki did not reprimand. He simply watched, marking his clipboard with strokes.
Then, the clan children began their rotation.
The shift was noticeable. An Inuzuka stepped up, his stance low and feral. He threw with an aggressive motion, sinking three out of five shuriken into the inner blue ring. A Hyuuga followed, her posture rigid but balanced. She landed four out five near the red center.
"Uchiha, Itachi" Daiki called out.
The courtyard went silent. Even the discouraged civilian children who had missed their targets stopped mourning to watch.
Itachi stepped forward. He didn't look at the targets, he looked through them. He reached into the crate, retrieving five shuriken, weaving the metal tools between the knuckles of his right hand.
The movement started in his left heel, transferring his momentum up through a pivot of his hips, and whipping down his right arm. The release was instantaneous. The flick of his wrist stabilized the trajectory of all five projectiles simultaneously.
Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack.
Five heavy impacts echoed. All five shuriken were buried into the exact center of the red bullseye.
"Perfect" Daiki noted, his voice betraying a faint trace of respect. "Next, Raijin"
I stepped out of the line and walked to the crate.
The shuriken felt completely different from the chipped tools I had scavenged in the forests. The balance was pristine.
I stood at the throwing line, staring at the empty target thirty yards away.
I knew exactly how to sink all five. I had spent a year throwing them at tree trunks until my fingers bled.
However, I couldn't show that here.
If I matched the Uchiha prodigy, I would cease to be background noise.
I needed to be average. It was incredibly difficult to fake incompetence. I had to consciously sabotage myself.
I picked up the five shuriken. I deliberately gripped them too tight, restricting the mobility of my wrist.
I threw the first one.
It sailed high and to the right, thudding heavily into the outer white ring of the target.
I exhaled. I threw the next four in quick succession. I stunted the rotation of my hips, generating the force entirely from my shoulder.
Two struck the blue ring. One caught the very edge of the red center. The final throw tumbled, hitting the dirt an inch below the wooden stand.
"You are gripping the steel too tightly" Daiki critiqued. "Stop fighting your weapon and let it guide your release. Next!"
I nodded. "Yes, sir."
I walked back to my spot behind Ken. Internally, I was satisfied. Three on target, two misses. A sixty percent success rate. It was perfectly average. I was safely overshadowed by the clan heirs, yet competent enough to avoid being demoted to a lower class.
"That was really good." Ken whispered, looking at my target. "I didn't even hit the wood."
"I got lucky on the third one" I lied to him.
The practical evaluations consumed the entire morning. Following the shuriken ranges, we were subjected to basic endurance tests and obstacle courses.
By the time the noon bell rang, the class hierarchy was already decided. Itachi was the untouchable genius. The clan heirs were the elite. The rest of us were simply filler.
I ate my lunch sitting on a shaded bench near the edge of the courtyard. Ken sat next to me, talking incessantly about his uncle's forge.
In the afternoon, we were marched back into the lecture hall for another theory block.
Many of the children, exhausted from the morning's drills, immediately slumped over their desks, fighting the urge to sleep.
I sat upright, my notebook open, my pencil ready. These lessons could prove useful to me in the long run since I had no theoretical knowledge about the underlying science of chakra.
Daiki stood at the chalkboard. He did not write the kanji for the Will of Fire this time. He drew a complex diagram of the human body, overlaying it with thin, branching lines.
"This" Daiki announced, tapping the board with his chalk "is the Keirakurei. The Chakra Pathway System"
I leaned forward slightly, my eyes tracking every line.
"Just as your blood vessels exist, your Chakra Pathway System circulates spiritual and physical energy throughout your body" Daiki lectured. "This system is connected to your organs. That is why using too much chakra, or suffering trauma to your chakra coils, can be fatal."
He drew small circular nodes in the points the lines intersected.
"There are exactly three hundred and sixty-one chakra points in the human body. These are the valves that regulate the flow and emission of your energy."
As Daiki continued detailing the flow of chakra, my mind began to snap puzzle pieces together.
I looked down at my notebook.
The previous night, in my apartment, my attempt at the Clone Technique had resulted in a failure. I had assumed it was due to defective hand seals or improper ratio of Yin chakra.
Listening to Daiki explain the chakra points, I realized I had been mistaken.
My spiritual energy was massive due to having survived the void. But the physical energy of this body could not compare to that. When I attempted the jutsu, I had forced that massive spiritual density through the tenketsu of a child.
Because the spiritual pressure was so high and the physical output so low, the illusion couldn't hold its structural integrity.
For every jutsu, I needed to cap my spiritual energy to match my physical capacity.
I began sketching a crude diagram of the chakra pathways in my notebook, not copying Daiki's board, but mapping my own internal flow.
"Homework for tonight. You will memorize the locations of the major chakra points in the arms and legs. There will be a written exam tomorrow."
The final bell rang, notifying the end of the first day.
The classroom erupted. Ken let out a loud groan, letting his head drop onto his desk. "An exam on the second day? I'm going to fail."
"Read the textbook" I said flatly, standing up. "Start with the basics."
I walked out of the Academy, merging with the flow of students dispersing into the village streets.
I turned the corner toward my apartment, my footsteps silent against the paving stones.