Chapter 1
Another idyllic day in the Hidden Village of Leaf. More than five decades after the Hidden Village of Sand's deceitful attack on Konoha, it was hard to believe that the village had once almost been destroyed. This generation of ninja had not faced even remotely as dire a circumstance as the ones that had befallen their current Hokage in his days as a mere student. Slouched in his seat at the back of the ninja academy classroom, a fiery-headed genin tipped his chair back and wished idly for that kind of excitement again. With his chalk-white skin, black tongue, needle-sharp teeth, and unsettlingly large irises, Inuzuka Kumamori would have stood out in Konoha even without his blood red hair. Still, he did his best to avoid his teachers' notice.
Not even bothering to stifle a huge yawn, Kuma meticulously selected another projectile from the impressive arsenal he'd been stockpiling all year. He waited until Jiro-sensei's attention was on the other side of the class before he took careful aim at the mass of slender purple braids of the girl sitting a few tiers down from him and flicked the bitten-off eraser tip, hard. Kuma snickered as the eraser lodged in the girl's hair, then pretended to be absorbed in his activity book when she turned her head to level a lethal glare in his direction.
Her lips pressed in a tight line, Samura Kaori rolled her eyes and swung back around to face the front of the room, giving her hair an impatient toss to shake the latest projectile loose. It joined the other eraser tips, spitballs, and buttons already scattered on the floor. She jotted a couple quick notes down as Jiro-sensei continued to go over the details of the Chuunin Exam.
"…based on your individual talents and potential compatibility. Some of your parents might remember the days when you would have already been put into three-person squads. This is not so today because it was decided that such premature placement often had undesirable results. You have been allowed to develop your particular talents individually and learn to overcome difficult tasks on your own. Now you will all need to learn how to work as teams. Don't forget: you will not be able to pass this exam by yourself! From tomorrow on, it will be all for one and one for all. Got it?" Running his fingers through the hedgehog spikes of his hair, he caught Kuma taking aim again in the corner of his eye. "And Inuzuka, if you throw one more object at Samura's head, you and your new teammates will have to compensate for your handicap."
Ear tips burning, Kuma raised his chin, defiantly meeting his teacher's gaze. "What handicap?"
"The one I'll give you when I glue all of your fingers together. Stop going out of your way to be a pest and express your true feelings like a real man. Yes, Kaori-chan?"
Doing her best to ignore the amused buzz from her classmates, Kaori lowered her hand. "Sir, if our teams don't work out, will we get reassigned?"
"Good question. Better answer: no. You have all been carefully watched these past couple years by various jounin—and Hokage-sama himself. They took every single one of your abilities and personality traits into consideration before arranging these teams. They'll work out as long as you all put forth the effort to get along, because each group is specifically designed to fuse into a perfect, fluid unit."
"Don't worry, Kaori-chan; I'll fuse with your unit," Kuma piped up. His classmates groaned, though his comment elicited one or two uneasy laughs. Kaori's gold eyes narrowed, and the pencil snapped in her hand. The laughter stopped abruptly. The look she shot Kuma over her shoulder almost melted the hitai-ate draped around his neck. He only grinned wider.
Whatever intervention Jiro might have had to impose was cut short by the sound of the end-of-the-day bell. Raising his voice to be heard over the shuffling of books and pencils and the slamming of desk lids, he called, "Remember, you're going to be assigned your teams first thing tomorrow, so don't be late! Inuzuka!" He caught the genin by the elbow as he raced for the door. "Not so fast. I want a word with you." His grip tightened when Kuma tried to wriggle free.
Kuma heaved a defeated sigh, shuffling his feet impatiently. "Yeah, sensei?"
"I'm going to give you some valuable advice, Kuma, so listen to me for once: your life would run a lot smoother if you just stopped being a pain in the neck." Jiro rubbed the wide scar that cut across the bridge of his nose and almost completely bisected his face. "These kids are your neighbors, your classmates, your peers, and one day you're going to have to rely on them to get your obnoxious ass out of a tight pinch. Maybe you ought to think about not giving them a reason to hesitate in that crucial moment when every second counts."
"Like it'll matter," Kuma muttered.
Jiro cocked his head. "What was that?"
"They all see me as some freak of nature. Given the chance, I'm sure they'd love to let my obnoxious ass fry and blame it on the odds. 'Something like that should never have been born—it's better for everyone that he's dead, right?'" Turning away, Kuma yanked his arm out of Jiro's grip and added flatly, "Thanks for the advice, sensei." Biting back a frustrated sigh, Jiro watched his student run out of the room.
Leaning against the tree in the school yard, Samura Eiri gazed up at the two short pieces of frayed rope knotted around the lowest limb. The story went that there had been a swing hanging from that limb once, but Uzumaki-sama had cut it down soon after receiving his title. When pressed, Rokudaime Hokage only replied that his decision had been safety-based, but no one had replaced the swing with a new one.
"Eiri-nii-chan!"
Smiling, Eiri returned his foster-sister's wave and fell in step with her when she drew alongside him. He could detect a sour note behind the younger genin's placid expression. "Is everything all right, Kaori-chan? You look a little upset."
Her face clouding, Kaori scowled. "It's just that idiot Kumamori again. He's so annoying."
"He gets teased so often for being different, he's probably overcompensating by acting out," Eiri said gently.
She tossed her hair, still frowning. "If he didn't work so hard at being a brat, nobody would even care about the way he looks."
Frankly, Eiri suspected that the young Inuzuka had been nursing a crush on Kaori for the past three years, but he knew if he mentioned it, his foster-sister would get flustered.
"What is it?" Kaori asked suspiciously, eyeing him.
"Hmm?"
"You've got that 'I have a secret, neener neener neener' look on your face again."
"Does it really look like I'm thinking 'neener neener neener'?" Eiri asked with exaggerated concern. He caught sight of Jiro exiting the building and hesitated. "Are you playing shougi with Nara-san today?"
"It's Wednesday, isn't it?"
"Then I'll meet you back at the house. I want to talk to your teacher about something."
Kaori slanted him a look. "I hope 'something' isn't your super secret code word for 'Samura Kaori's progress in class.'"
Eiri had to laugh. "It isn't. Now go on. Good luck with your game!"
"Luck has nothing to do with it, and it isn't a game!" Kaori said heatedly. Eiri grinned. He had touched on one of the only topics that captured Kaori's whole-hearted interest. "It's my eternal battle of wits against Old Man Shikamaru, and it's deadly serious." She started walking backward to the Nara household, still railing at Eiri about strategy, pride, honor, and upholding the Samura name.
Waving, Eiri waited until she disappeared around the corner before turning back to the school and found Jiro standing patiently by the tree.
"You were waiting for me, Eiri-kun?" the chuunin asked.
Tucking a lock of shoulder-length white hair behind his ear, Eiri nodded, lilac eyes fixed on a point just past Jiro's left ear. "I wanted to ask you—the Chuunin Exam—do you think I should take it?"
"Why shouldn't you? Have you spoken to Ayama-sensei?"
"Yes, but I… She told me I should. But I feel like—like it would be wrong, like I'm… cheating, somehow."
The corner of Jiro's lips twitched. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you've already taken the Chuunin Exam in your former life?"
Eiri looked up, startled. Since the day Samura Takeshi had found Eiri half-dead and unconscious on a seldom-used trail leading to Konoha Village, Eiri had not been able to recall a single memory from his life before waking in the hospital. Konoha's famed blacksmith and primary manufacturer of the village ninjas' hitai-ate had taken Eiri under his wing, apprenticing him as a metalworker until he realized Eiri's true potential. It was only when Eiri was helping the then twelve-year-old Kaori practice for her final exam at the ninja academy that he displayed an impressive aptitude for ninjutsu. He had been enrolled the next week, and had raced through almost a decade's worth of instruction and training in under three years, lauded by his teachers as a genius-class ninja. As none of the other Hidden Villages had reported a missing student, everyone in Konoha had simply attributed Eiri's talent to natural ability. But if he had gone through all of this training before (and at the age of somewhere around 18, he was certainly old enough)…
"Wouldn't I have remembered something?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. It would make sense, though, wouldn't it? Or maybe you really are a genius. Either way, there's no reason why you shouldn't go through with the Exam. No one would begrudge you the rank of chuunin. Oh, and Eiri-kun?"
"Yes?"
Jiro pretended to concern himself with rubbing a stain off the immaculate metal plate of the hitai-ate tied around his upper arm. "You never did explain to me why you asked to be transferred from my class last year."
Inspecting the grass at his feet, Eiri murmured, "My placement there… complicated things."
"Was it because your—I'm up here, Eiri," he said firmly, tilting his former student's chin up so that he was forced to make eye contact. "Because your sister was in the same class?"
Eiri cleared his throat nervously. "I worried that having to compete all the time in school might have a negative effect on our relationship at home."
Searching the younger man's eyes before he released him, Jiro grinned. "Still feeding me the same line of bull." He clapped a hand on the genin's shoulder. "When you pass the exam, Eiri-kun, you'll tell me the real reason, won't you? After all, you'll be a chuunin then, and won't have to worry about the repercussions of telling a teacher what you really think about him."
Clearly relieved to have been let off the hook, however temporarily, Eiri nodded. "If I pass, I'll treat both you and Ayama-sensei to dinner. I would never have made it this far without the two of you."
"Ayama-sensei's leaving on a mission for the Hidden Village of Cloud in a few days. It may just be you and me." Squeezing Eiri's shoulder before letting his hand drop, Jiro hooked his thumbs in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "I like shellfish, by the way."
Eiri smiled. "I'll start asking around for the best seafood restaurant in Konoha," he said, bowed quickly, and started walking home.
"It's a date, then," Jiro called after him, and grinned again when Eiri stumbled.