Near the Konoha Memorial, where the river runs quietly past the village, lies a small grove of trees. Tall trunks rise toward the sky, their leaves swaying softly as the wind passes through them, carrying a constant whisper through the branches. Sunlight filters through the canopy in scattered beams, painting shifting patterns across the grass below. At the center of the grove rests a small clearing, a calm pocket of open ground hidden from the bustle of the village.
The trees around the clearing were marked with practice targets. Kunai and shuriken were lodged in the bark, some buried deep while others hung crookedly from poor throws. Many more lay scattered across the ground beneath the trees, silent proof of hours of relentless training.
"One… ha."
"Two… ha."
I balanced between two tree trunks, my legs pointing straight toward the sky. Using the trunks for support, I pushed my body up and down in steady handstand push-ups. My arms trembled as I forced myself through another repetition.
"Forty-seven… forty-eight…"
My shadow had grown shorter as the morning sun climbed higher in the sky. Sweat dripped from my face, turning the dirt beneath me into a small patch of mud. My breathing grew heavier with every repetition.
The strain in my arms finally got to me, and I stopped. Pushing myself upright, I grabbed my towel and wiped the sweat from my face.
I caught my breath and lifted my gaze. My eyes drifted to the Hokage Rock. The four massive stone faces of Konoha's leaders loomed above the village, their lifeless eyes carved into the mountain as they watched over its people. For a moment, it felt as though those silent gazes were fixed directly on me.
Those faces belonged to the strongest shinobi the village had ever produced.
If I wanted to make sure I never became anyone's tool, I would have to grow strong—strong enough to stand among monsters like them.
That night made it painfully clear.
It had been weeks since then—since Aoi and I faced that former shinobi turned thief. Weeks since I began training seriously.
A breeze rustled through the grove, and I glanced up. The sun had climbed much higher than I expected.
My eyes widened.
Crap.
Class.
If I didn't leave now, I was going to be late.
I jogged down to the river and splashed cold water over my face and arms, washing away the sweat and dirt from training before changing into fresh clothes. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.
Grabbing my things, I hurried toward the academy.
By the time I reached the classroom hallway, I was nearly out of breath.
I pushed the door open. The classroom buzzed with morning chatter as students filled their seats.
I let out a quiet sigh of relief when I saw that Hirose hadn't arrived yet.
Glancing around the room, I spotted Akito chatting with a group of other boys. In a short time, he'd somehow become popular among the guys and gathered a bunch of friends. The good thing was that he didn't bother me as much anymore.
He noticed me and quickly walked over.
"What took you so long? I've been waiting forever."
Before I could answer, Hirose walked into the classroom. The two of us quickly took our seats near the middle of the back row.
"Today we'll be reviewing chakra control," Hirose said as he wrote on the board.
I tried to focus on the lesson until Akito leaned closer.
"You look like crap," he said.
"Didn't sleep well," I replied.
Which wasn't technically a lie.
That seemed to satisfy him. He didn't press further and immediately started babbling.
"Oh man, you missed a crazy fight earlier. Reji was making fun of that short girl and she smacked—"
I tuned him out halfway through.
That was when I noticed someone staring at me.
It was Aoi.
The moment I looked back, she quickly turned her head toward the board, but not before I caught the faint pink coloring her cheeks.
Ever since the hospital, things between us had been… strange. Whenever I tried talking to her, she ignored me and made faces like she'd smelled something rotten. Yet during class, I would often catch her watching me from across the room.
I had no idea what I'd done to deserve that treatment.
I sighed and turned back to the board.
The morning passed without incident. Chakra theory, formation exercises, a written drill that Akito finished in half the time and spent the rest of the period pretending to sleep through. Ordinary enough that I almost forgot what was waiting at the end of it.
"So that's all for today," Hirose said as he began gathering his materials. "Before you leave, I have an announcement regarding your yearly exam results."
The classroom immediately grew tense.
Hirose glanced over the room before continuing.
"Surprisingly… you all passed."
For a moment the room was silent. Then the entire class erupted in cheers.
Hirose raised a hand for silence.
"However," he continued calmly, "it has been decided that a special test will be conducted."
The cheers instantly turned into loud protests.
"Eh?! Sensei, why?"
"That's not fair!"
"You just said we passed!"
"Why do we need another test?!"
Hirose slowly rubbed his temple and let out a long breath, clearly losing patience with the noise.
Then he suddenly slammed his palm against the desk.
"QUIET DOWN!!"
The shout exploded through the classroom like thunder. Several students instantly covered their ears while others flinched in their seats. I was pretty sure he had used chakra to amplify his voice.
The room fell completely silent.
Hirose scanned the class with a sharp gaze before speaking again.
"We cannot pass everyone."
A few uneasy murmurs spread through the room, but no one dared raise their voice this time.
"Therefore, a special exam will be held tomorrow."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"Eight in the morning."
His eyes swept across the classroom one last time.
"Do not be late."
A special exam tomorrow.
From what I remembered, nothing like this had ever happened in canon.
Hirose left the classroom in the middle of my thoughts. The moment the door closed behind him, the room erupted into chatter as everyone began discussing the special test.
"What do you think the test will be?" Akito asked, sounding slightly worried.
"I don't think they'll make us repeat the written, physical, and weapon tests again," I said. "It could be anything…"
I was honestly unsure what the test might be.
"Let's go to a weapon shop," I said to Akito. "If the test is tomorrow, we should at least be prepared."
He nodded immediately.
The two of us left the academy and headed toward the nearest weapons store.
The shop looked almost like something out of an old Chinese market. Wooden shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, neatly displaying rows of kunai, shuriken, and small scrolls. A few spears and practice swords rested on stands near the back, their polished metal reflecting the warm lantern light hanging from the ceiling. The faint smell of oil and polished steel filled the air.
Ting.
The small bell above the door chimed as we pushed it open.
"Welcome to the shop!"
We stepped inside and were greeted by a familiar face.
A girl stood behind the counter, her black hair tied into two round buns on either side of her head. She wore a green traditional Chinese dress, giving her the appearance of someone who belonged in a martial arts story.
The moment she saw us—more specifically, Akito—the smile on her face vanished, replaced by clear annoyance.
On the other hand, Akito's face lit up instantly.
"Tenten?!" he said excitedly. "What are you doing here!"
She forced a smile and answered, her voice almost breaking.
"I work here."
Before Akito could say anything else—most likely something stupid—I quickly cut in.
"We'll take twenty smoke bombs and two reels of wire."
Akito looked even more confused.
"Huh?! Aren't we buying kunai and shuriken?"
I sighed.
"Obviously not, idiot. The academy won't allow us to use real kunai or shuriken."
I gestured toward the shop shelves.
"This is just an academy exam, not the Chunin Exams. They're not going to hand a bunch of students real weapons and hope no one gets seriously hurt."
Tenten smirked and let out a soft chuckle.
"Huh… looks like you know what you're doing," she said, placing the items on the counter.
Akito's face lit up instantly, a faint blush creeping across his cheeks.
He had clearly missed the sarcasm and taken it the wrong way. I didn't bother correcting him. I simply handed the money to her.
Tenten took the money and gave Akito one last amused glance.
As we turned to leave, something on a nearby display caught my eye.
Resting on a wooden stand was a blade unlike the usual kunai and throwing knives. It was longer, with a thick spine and a straight, sturdy edge meant for close combat rather than throwing. The handle was wrapped tightly in dark cloth, built for a firm grip.
The knife looked strangely modern—something closer to a soldier's combat blade than a shinobi tool. Yet it was longer than most knives, almost like a short sword.
"What happened? Why'd you stop?" Akito complained, clearly uninterested in the weapon.
"You like that blade, kid?"
I turned toward the voice.
A muscular man stood near the doorway, probably in his mid-twenties. Sweat and dirt clung to his skin as if he had just returned from training or a long journey. He wore a dark bandana and a sleeveless shirt that showed off heavily scarred arms.
"Sensei! When did you get back?" Tenten exclaimed.
So he was Tenten's teacher… and likely the original owner of the weapon shop.
The man gave a small nod.
"Just now," he said. "I finished working on my latest piece. I'll show it to you later."
He patted her head as he passed.
Tenten's eyes immediately lit up with curiosity.
The man walked over to the display beside me and glanced at the blade.
His expression twisted with faint disappointment.
"It's a failure."
That only made me more curious.
"Then why keep it on display?" I asked. "Shouldn't you just throw it out?"
The man shook his head slowly.
"It was one of the first blades I ever forged," he said. "Back then I was young… and stupid. I wanted to rebel against conventional designs. I thought I could make something better than the weapons shinobi had been using for generations."
He picked the blade up from the stand and turned it in his hand, inspecting the edge.
"See this?" he said, tapping the thick spine with a finger. "Too heavy for throwing. Shinobi weapons need balance."
His finger slid down to the blade's edge.
"And it's too long to move comfortably in tight combat. A kunai is shorter for a reason."
He flipped the blade once before placing it back on the stand.
"In trying to make it good at everything… I made it bad at everything."
"I call it the Forsaken Blade," he said quietly. "Because no one ever wanted it… and no one ever found a use for it."
Without warning, the man tossed the blade toward me.
My body moved before my mind could catch up. I caught it—but the weight dragged my arm downward, the tip of the blade striking the ground with a dull thud.
The craftsman smiled faintly.
"Nice catch."
The blade felt far heavier than a kunai—heavier even than a normal combat knife. For a moment I had to grip it with both hands just to steady it.
Then I adjusted my hold and shifted the balance, lifting it with one hand.
The man watched me closely.
"…Interesting," he muttered. "Your grip's not bad."
He folded his arms and nodded toward the blade.
"So, kid… what do you think? Want it?"
I blinked in disbelief.
"Wait, really?"
The craftsman shrugged.
"Take it if you want. Nobody buys failures."
I gave the blade a quick test swing.
The blade hummed faintly through the air.
I had needed a weapon ever since that night, but I never imagined I would end up with something like this. The blade felt awkward now—unfamiliar—but with enough practice, it could become a trump card in a difficult fight.
Decision made, I slid the blade into a holster, bowed slightly to the man, and left the shop with Akito.
Behind us, Tenten turned to him in surprise.
"Sensei! Wasn't that one of your prized blades? Why did you just give it away?"
The man laughed loudly.
"Hahaha! When you've lived and experienced as much as I have, you develop a knack for these things."
He glanced toward the door we had just left through.
"That kid… he's the perfect fit for that blade."
Akito and I parted ways near the main road. He mumbled something about picking up food before heading off in the opposite direction, already distracted by whatever was on his mind.
I kept walking.
The village had settled into its quieter evening rhythm. Shop owners were pulling in their signs, and the smell of cooking drifted out from open windows as families sat down for dinner. Lanterns along the road began to flicker on one by one as the daylight faded.
That was when I noticed him.
A boy from Class A was sitting alone on a low stone wall near the edge of the road. I recognized him vaguely—a civilian kid, one of the quiet ones who usually sat near the front and never caused trouble. I couldn't even remember his name off the top of my head.
He was staring at the ground, elbows on his knees, hands loosely folded. His bag rested beside him, untouched. He hadn't noticed me at all.
I almost walked past him.
But something about the way he was sitting made me slow down. Not slumped like someone tired. More like someone carrying weight they couldn't set down.
I stopped.
"Hey."
He looked up, startled. For a moment he seemed unsure whether I was actually talking to him.
"You're from Class A, right?" I said.
He nodded slowly. "…Yeah."
I sat down on the wall beside him, leaving a gap between us. I set the bag with the smoke bombs and wire on the ground near my feet.
Neither of us said anything for a moment.
Then, without much prompting, he spoke.
"I'm going to fail the exam tomorrow."
I glanced at him.
"On purpose," he added quietly.
I didn't respond right away.
"If I fail badly enough," he continued, his voice flat, like he'd already thought this through a hundred times, "they'll demote me back to Class C. Or expel me outright."
"And that's what you want?"
He let out a short breath. Not quite a laugh.
"I don't want to be a shinobi."
He said it simply. Without drama. Like it was a plain fact he'd been keeping to himself for a long time.
"My parents decided it for me before I could say anything. They think it's the best path. Stable income, honor for the family, all that." He shook his head slightly. "But I hate it. The weapons, the fighting… I freeze up every time."
He stared at his hands. The knuckles were rough, the skin around his fingers calloused in a way that had nothing to do with kunai or training posts. The kind of hands that came from sanding wood, fitting joints, working with something that didn't try to hurt you back.
"I want to open a carpentry shop someday. My grandfather had one. I used to help him after school — he taught me how to read the grain of the wood before you cut it, so it doesn't split wrong." A pause. "It was quiet. And I was actually good at it."
I looked at him for a moment.
There wasn't much I could say to that. He wasn't wrong about any of it. The academy funneled kids into a system that would eventually turn them into weapons for the village. Not everyone was built for that—and not everyone should have to be.
"Then fail," I said.
He blinked.
"If that's what you've decided," I said, "then do it properly. Don't half-commit and end up stuck in the middle."
He seemed to turn that over in his head. Then, slowly, some of the tension in his shoulders eased. Maybe just having someone say it plainly—without trying to talk him out of it—was enough.
We sat in silence for another minute before he picked up his bag, said a quiet thanks, and walked off down the road.
I watched him go.
Then I stayed there a little longer, alone.
The question he'd unknowingly left behind wasn't about him.
It was about me.
If he could fail on purpose — if walking away was that simple — then why hadn't I done the same?
I had spent four years carefully performing mediocrity. Staying in the middle. Keeping my head down. Every move calculated to make sure no one looked at me too closely or expected too much. I had a plan. A quiet life. A low-ranking job that kept me far from the front lines.
Then I got moved to Class A.
And instead of tanking the placement test, I passed it.
Instead of failing the yearly exam, I spent weeks training before dawn at the grove, pushing myself through handstand push-ups until my arms shook and my shadow pooled beneath me in the mud.
And tonight, when I heard about a special exam tomorrow, my first instinct wasn't to throw it.
It was to go buy smoke bombs.
I looked down at the bag in my hands.
Why am I preparing to pass?
I told myself it was Naruto's world that made me cautious. That anyone who stood out here became a target — for war, for politics, for the kind of fate that got people killed young. Staying small was survival logic, not cowardice.
But that wasn't the whole truth.
I reached up and touched the side of my jaw. It had healed cleanly, but I still remembered the exact angle my head had hit the floor in that unfinished tower. The sound of it. The flash of white behind my eyes.
And I remembered, just before that —
The moment I threw that rock.
Chakra, channeled without thinking. Pure instinct. And when it connected — when the weapon clattered across the floor and the fight tilted —
I had felt something.
Not relief. Not fear.
Something sharper than both.
I had felt alive.
Afghanistan didn't do that to me all at once.
The first firefight was terror — pure and simple. Dry mouth, shaking hands, the world moving too fast for thought. I remember pressing myself against a wall afterward and wondering how anyone survived this more than once.
But the tenth was different. Manageable. And somewhere around the fiftieth, without me noticing, something had quietly shifted.
I had started to enjoy it.
Not the death. Not the blood. But the precision of it — the way everything simplified down to angles and timing and breath. No politics. No confusion. No drifting. Just skill meeting a problem that needed solving, and the clean satisfaction when it did. I knew it was happening and I didn't stop it. It made the job easier.
When I came home, I told myself the emptiness was the war's fault. That it had taken something from me I couldn't get back. That was a clean story. Easy to carry.
But sitting here now, I couldn't fully believe it anymore.
Because the depression that swallowed me after Afghanistan — that hollow, gray drifting — it didn't feel like a man tormented by violence.
It felt like a man who had lost access to the only thing that made him feel real.
In war, every second had weight. Every decision mattered. Miss a detail and someone died. Get it right and someone lived. The present tense was the only thing that existed, and it was sharp enough to cut.
Then I came home and made fries.
Woke up. Made fries. Went to sleep.
Nothing meant anything. Nothing had edges. The days blurred into each other like water into water, and I moved through them like a ghost who had forgotten what it felt like to be solid.
Naruto helped, a little. Not because it was a story about fighting — but because it was a story about people who had something worth moving toward. That small warmth of watching it with Jake. The reminder that a reason could exist.
But the tower —
The tower gave me something else entirely.
Beaten, bleeding, head ringing against the floor — and underneath all of it, something in my chest that I didn't want to name had quietly opened.
I reached up and pressed two fingers against my temple.
That's the part that disgusts me.
Because it meant it was never fully Afghanistan's fault.
The war didn't create this. It just found something that was already there — buried, maybe, but present — fed it for five years, and handed it back to me as something I couldn't unlearn.
Some version of this had always been inside Jude Todd.
And now it was inside Kazu Mori too.
I stood up and slung the bag over my shoulder.
The street was nearly empty. Lanterns swayed in the evening breeze, casting long yellow shapes across the ground. Somewhere down the road, a child was being called in for dinner.
I started walking home.
I didn't have an answer. I wasn't sure I wanted one.
But something had cracked open tonight — quietly, without drama — like a mirror I had spent four years carefully avoiding, finally catching the light at the wrong angle.
I had seen something in the reflection.
And I couldn't pretend I hadn't.
My apartment was at the end of a narrow side street, tucked between a laundry shop and a building that had been under repair for as long as I could remember. Nothing remarkable about it. That was the point when I chose it.
I climbed the short steps to the front door, keys already in hand.
The walk home had been quiet. Good. I needed quiet after everything rattling around in my head tonight. What I wanted was to eat something simple, sleep early, and face tomorrow's exam with a clear mind.
I slid the key into the lock.
The door swung open before I could turn it.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!"
I stepped back instinctively, hand snapping toward my hip — then stopping.
Akito stood in the middle of my apartment with both arms thrown wide, grinning like he had just pulled off the greatest achievement of his life. A paper banner hung crookedly above the window, the characters for happy birthday painted in uneven strokes that suggested Akito had written it himself and in a hurry.
On the low table sat a small cake. Simple, clearly from the bakery two streets over, with a single candle already burning down.
Beside Akito, half a step back, stood Aoi.
She was holding a wrapped package with both hands, looking anywhere except directly at me. Her expression was carefully neutral in the way that meant she was working hard to keep it that way.
For a moment I just stood in the doorway.
"…How did you get into my apartment?"
Akito pointed at Aoi without hesitation.
She immediately turned red.
"You leave your window unlatched," she said, her voice clipped. "It's a security risk. You should fix it."
"She climbed in through the window," Akito confirmed, nodding seriously.
"I'm aware of what I did, Akito."
"Cool as anything too. Just — whoosh — right through."
"Akito."
I looked between the two of them.
Somewhere in the back of my chest, something that had been wound tight all evening began, very slowly, to loosen.
"Come in," Akito said, gesturing around my own apartment like a gracious host. "Sit down, sit down."
"This is my house."
"Exactly, so relax. You're the birthday boy."
I stepped inside and set the bag down near the door. The candle on the cake had burned noticeably shorter. Akito had clearly been waiting long enough that it had crossed his mind to just light it and start without me.
I sat down across from the cake.
Up close, it was slightly lopsided. The frosting on one side was thicker than the other, and someone had pressed a small decorative leaf into the top that had since slid halfway off.
Then I noticed the writing on it.
In careful pink frosting, the cake read:
Happy 60th Birthday, Grandma Setsuko.
I stared at it for a moment.
"Akito."
"Mm?"
"Whose cake is this."
Akito suddenly became very interested in the banner above the window.
"The bakery was out of plain cakes," he said carefully.
"So you bought one that was already ordered."
"I didn't buy it exactly."
Aoi made a sound like someone slowly losing the will to live.
"There was a woman," Akito continued, with the tone of a man constructing a legal defense in real time. "She had ten cakes. Ten, Kazu. Who needs ten cakes?"
"Her family was picking up for a party, you absolute idiot," Aoi said through her teeth. "I told you that while you were already running."
"She still had nine."
"That is not the point—"
"She didn't even chase me that far."
"She was wearing sandals, Akito!"
"See, that's on her. Poor footwear choice."
"I will never be seen in public with you again."
Akito turned back to me with the serene expression of a man completely at peace with his choices.
"Happy birthday," he said. "You are now sixty years old and someone's grandmother. I think that's beautiful."
Something cracked open in my chest.
Not the quiet exhale from before — something completely different. Something I didn't plan for and couldn't stop once it started.
I laughed.
Not a polite laugh. Not a short one. A real one — loud and sudden, the kind that doubles you forward and makes your eyes water, the kind that doesn't care who hears it. I pressed a hand over my mouth but it didn't help at all. My shoulders shook. The whole thing came up from somewhere so deep it almost hurt.
For a moment there was nothing else.
No dark reflection in a cracked mirror. No Afghanistan. No Konoha, no war, no exam tomorrow, no careful plan to stay invisible and unremarkable. No version of myself I was afraid of.
Just a stolen birthday cake addressed to Grandma Setsuko and two idiots bickering in my living room.
The silence that followed my laugh was complete.
I looked up.
Akito was staring at me with his mouth slightly open, a piece of cake suspended halfway to his face, completely forgotten.
Aoi had gone very still. She was watching me with an expression I hadn't seen on her before — unguarded, almost startled, like she had just witnessed something she wasn't sure was real.
"What?" I said, still catching my breath.
"Nothing," Aoi said quickly, looking down.
"You've never laughed like that before," Akito said, still staring.
"People laugh."
"Not you." He pointed his fork at me. "You do that thing where you breathe out through your nose a little. This was different." He tilted his head. "It was kind of scary."
"It wasn't scary," Aoi said quietly, almost to herself.
Akito looked at her.
She picked up the cake knife with great focus and began cutting very precise slices.
"It wasn't," she said again, more firmly this time, to no one in particular.
Akito opened his mouth.
"Don't," she said.
He closed it.
He looked at me with an expression that said I have many thoughts about this and wisely chose to eat his cake instead.
We stayed like that for a while. No particular reason to move. Akito ate two and a half slices and complained the whole time that the frosting was unevenly distributed, which was technically true. Aoi sat with her knees together and her posture straight and ate her piece in small careful bites like she always did everything — with more attention than it required.
At some point Akito leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed and eyes closed, and within five minutes he was asleep sitting upright, chin dipping toward his chest.
The room went quiet.
I looked at the remaining cake. Happy 60th Birthday, Grandma Setsuko. Half the lettering was gone now. Just Grandma Setsu remained, and most of the u had been eaten by Akito.
"You should get more locks," Aoi said.
"I'll look into it."
A pause.
"I thought you disliked me," I said.
She glanced up.
"The way you ignored me after the hospital. The faces you made whenever I tried talking to you." I kept my voice even. "I genuinely couldn't figure out what I'd done."
She didn't answer immediately. Her hands stilled in her lap.
"I didn't dislike you," she said finally. Quiet. Clipped. The tone of someone choosing words very carefully.
I waited.
She looked at the table. Not at me.
"People talk," she said. "About me. They always have." A short pause, her voice staying flat and careful like she was reading from something rehearsed. "I'm used to it. It doesn't matter."
She smoothed that nonexistent crease in her sleeve again.
"But if we were seen together often — if people thought we were close —" She stopped. Started again. "I didn't want them turning it on you too."
The room was quiet.
I understood it then. Not a calculated decision. Not coldness. Something much older than that — the particular logic of someone who had learned early that the people near them became targets too, and had spent years quietly creating distance to protect them from it.
"That's a stupid reason," I said.
She looked up sharply.
"I mean it," I said. "It's a genuinely stupid reason." I met her eyes. "I think I can handle people talking."
Her mouth opened. Closed.
The tips of her ears went red.
She stood and gathered her things with slightly more force than necessary — efficient, quiet, clearly done with this conversation.
At the door she paused, her back to me, one hand on the frame.
"You should laugh like that more," she said.
Her voice was just slightly less clipped than usual. Just enough.
She stepped out and pulled the door gently shut behind her.
Akito snored once from his place against the wall, shifted slightly, and went still again.
I looked at what was left of the cake. At the crooked banner. At the small book sitting on the table beside my bag of smoke bombs and wire.
Outside, the village had gone quiet. Tomorrow there was an exam. Somewhere down the road there were wars coming that I knew the shape of. And somewhere inside me there was a crack in a mirror I was going to have to look at eventually.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I blew out a candle for a woman named Grandma Setsuko, and for just a little while, I forgot to be careful.
It was enough.