I stared at the border of the courtyard, still partially in shock from the Tsuchikage's ludicrous display. The tear from the earth rising beneath us was not seamless, and jagged ruts had been formed at the edges. I bet they would be gone before the day was up.

"Your home room is in building two," Yoshiro said, snapping us out of our reverie. "Room three hundred and twenty-one. Be there in fifteen minutes."

He disappeared into a spray of dirt, and after a bit of confusion, my batch once again blazed into activity. Childish voices called out, asking questions to both Yoshiro-sensei who wasn't there and each other, because none of us knew which building was which. And as each one faced the courtyard, we could easily see that they weren't labeled either.

Building two, building two. There must have been some way for us to tell them apart—otherwise, he would have told us which one it was. They were all nearly identical, though the one directly in front of the Tsuchikage's palace was the tallest. I would hazard a guess to say that was building one, but I couldn't be sure.

Then I saw them. On each of the roofs, barely visible from this perspective, were giant busts that acted as central spires. On the tallest building, which made the sculpture the least visible, was an elderly figure with a long, triangular beard and a mustache. The one ahead of us had a statue carved in the likeness of the man we had just met, but the last held a figure very different from the other two.

This one was mostly featureless, as no hair or facial elements were visible. Instead, lines were carved into the stone to represent bandages, all orderly and precise.

Hello, Lord Mu, I greeted the statue of who I assumed was the strongest of the Tsuchikage, though I had seen almost nothing of the Shodaime. Pretty sure he used the Kamizuru wasps instead of the dust release though. And, since the Sandaime wasn't a null man and couldn't split himself, I was rather confident in my assumption.

I wanted to be the first in the classroom, so I quickly and surreptitiously substituted myself with one of the stones the Sandaime had kicked up with his jutsu, landing near the side of what I was sure was the second building. The room was in the three hundreds, and since I was sure there weren't a hundred rooms on each floor, I knew I needed to look on the third story. But which one?

"Three hundred and twenty-one," I muttered. I had looked through the entranceway of building one, and it looked like there was a single hallway on that floor with long rooms on each side. Assuming that building two had the same layout, my classroom would be on the opposite end of the building, on one of the sides.

I was scared of heights, but that was overridden by my competitiveness and my need to stand out. So, using chakra, I scaled the wall.

Currently, I was incapable of vertical surface walking as it was demonstrated in the anime. Not just due to chakra ability, though that did play a role. Standing parallel to the ground was torture on the muscles, and it spoke to the pure physical potential of the shinobi in the anime that they could manage such a feat at all, much less for a possibly indefinite amount of time. I was an unusually muscular child, but I was still a child nonetheless, and my core couldn't handle such strain.

But I could live out my fantasies of becoming Spider-Man by wall crawling. And, though three stories was higher than I had ever attempted to venture before, I had little difficulty now, even with all of the artistic outcroppings that adorned the structure.

Most of the windows I looked into were empty, which made me wonder why there were so many of them. But then I remembered that we just had a war, and realized how that might contribute to empty classrooms. Shaking my head, I continued my search and nearly crowed in victory as I finally found Yoshiro-sensei standing at the front of an, as of yet, empty classroom. That would have taken away from my coolness factor, though, so I refrained.

If this was my old world, the upper windows in a school would be locked. But in this one, they slid open with ease, and I climbed in to see Yoshiro-sensei looking at me with a single eyebrow raised.

"Imai-san," he deadpanned. "Why are you entering my classroom through the window?"

So, he already knows my name. I'll go with the cool and mysterious approach.

"What kind of shinobi enters through the door?" I asked stoically.

"A polite one," he retorted, and if my heart didn't begin to sink with that response, it did with his next question. "Where are the rest of your classmates?"

A little flat-footed, I said, "I assume they're on their way up now?"

His frown deepened ever so slightly. "This was a puzzle meant for you to solve as a group. Sneaking up here by yourself is exactly the opposite of what I wanted you to do. Did you not hear Lord Tsuchikage's speech? We are all valuable pieces. Neglecting to help your comrades, especially when the inconvenience to yourself is so minor, will only ever come back to haunt you."

What the fuck? I'm sorry, am I in Iwa right now, or Konoha? What the hell was this Will of Fire bullshit he was spouting? Don't get me wrong, I didn't disagree with anything he said, and in a more drastic situation I would have made very different choices. But this was so far from what I expected an Iwa nin's mentality to be.

"I'm sorry, sensei," I said immediately, and before I dipped my head into a bow. "I misunderstood the purpose behind your test. It will not happen again."

"I believe you," he said. "But you are in the academy now, and I am your mentor, not your family or friend. Any failure will beget consequences; that is how you will learn."

Holy Moses. I was expecting to get praised for this, not punished. It was the first day—no, hour, for fuck's sake!

"I will accept whatever punishment you deem fit," I said, even though my ears burned.

"I will administer no punishment," he corrected, and my stomach turned. "The punishment you will receive is simply the natural consequences of your actions."

As if on fucking cue, the door burst open, and a crowd of panting children burst into the room, headed by…wow. Iwao just keeps surprising me, doesn't he? It was clear he had asserted himself or had been chosen as a leader. A real white knight.

And I just painted myself as his dark counterpart. The villain of batch sixty-seven.

He froze upon seeing me, and as the rest pushed into the room, they seemed confused at the picture before them.

"Congratulations, Imai-san," Yoshiro-sensei drawled, loud enough for the rest of the class to hear. "If this was a race, you would have won. Now, everybody take your seats."

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

So began what I would have called in my previous life "syllabus day." We were taken between each classroom we would use, and met all the assistant teachers that would be instructing us. There, they shared the itinerary for the coming semester, along with their expectations for us as students.

Since we were so young, everything was rather basic. The day began with arithmetic, which, if I wasn't a reincarnated adult that could already do it perfectly, would have pissed me off. I had been cursed to start with first period math all throughout high school, to my detriment, and it seemed to carry over to this life too.

My next period was survival, something I knew considerably less about. We would be learning a lot of theory, and apparently a lot about knots, which my sailing prowess might give me a head start in. But there would also be a unit on foraging, and…tents and stuff.

Those classes would each be an hour and fifteen minutes long. After that was physical conditioning, which was two and a half hours, followed by lunch. That lasted an hour, and we were encouraged to make use of the showers during that time. Communal bathing, which was completely ordinary in this culture, was something I would have to get used to.

After that was an interesting class, ominously titled Consequences. Yoshiro-sensei explained that its purpose was to put us through mental exercises that would force us to foretell cause and effect relationships. Basically, he would run us through what if scenarios with varying levels of complexity, and we would attempt to speculate what ramifications they would have. Later, the scenarios would become open-ended, and we would be expected to come up with courses of action to take, and defend them against critique. It was an interesting premise for a class, and I could imagine how it would be helpful in the development of the shinobi mindset. That was an hour and fifteen like the other theoretical classes.

That was followed by a class that killed two birds with one stone. It was a written comprehension class, but the topics we were reading about would all be history related. And no doubt heavily edited and propagandized, though that was beside the point.

Next was sparring. Pretty self explanatory. We would fight each other, though that wasn't all. Each fight would be followed by an analysis that the entire class would take part in. Which could potentially be very traumatizing for these kids. That took two hours and a half hours, but if we finished early (like Yoshiro-sensei told us we almost always would), the remaining time would be added to the next and final class.

Which was calisthenics. We'll do full body strengthening, aerobics, flexibility training and we will build habits geared towards increasing our bodies' overall health. After that, we would all limp back home.

We wouldn't touch weapons or chakra this semester, and likely the next few semesters after that. That didn't surprise me. What did was that there were no martial arts classes, which didn't make sense, especially considering we would be sparring.

If the sparring class wasn't used to refine our technique, what was the point? There had to be one. Otherwise, we would just be reinforcing our comfort with a personal fighting style that might conflict with the Stone Fist.

I would ask that question another day, after Yoshiro-sensei hopefully forgot about the earlier incident.

Before the man let us out early for the day, he had us do icebreakers. And not the surface level ones Kakashi made Team Seven do.

"Your batchmates will be your closest comrades, and not merely for the duration of the academy," Yoshiro-sensei said. "Those of you who secure a jonin sensei will also be assigned teammates from this batch. Those of you who do not, will be grouped into squads composed primarily of your batchmates. Your survival could very well hinge on your relationships with one another. So, let us gain some familiarity."

"Begin with your names," he instructed. "Then, tell us about your families, your skills, your weaknesses, the type of shinobi you want to be in the future. And finally, your home address. I will write down your responses, and they will be hung up in this room for the duration of the semester."

I was already balking over the second, third and fourth point. But Yoshiro-sensei wanted me to give all of my classmates my home address? From the whispers around me, I could tell my classmates were as taken aback by the instruction as I was.

"We'll go alphabetically," Yoshiro-sensei said, not addressing the whispers. There were twenty-six students in my batch, so this might take a while. "Starting with Asa Hifume."

A plain-looking girl stepped forward. Her parents were shinobi, with her father being a jonin and mother a genin. She was good at trapmaking, as that was her father's specialty, but she had a hard time learning kanji. She wanted to follow in her father's footsteps and become a back line defensive specialist.

Next was Ashikaga Takeo, who was, despite her masculine name, a girl. She claimed her father was high-ranking in the military but wouldn't give a name, and since Yoshiro-sensei didn't press despite his insistence on transparency, I believed her. I also assumed that meant her father was a jonin. Her mother was a civilian, however, and primarily took care of her. She was proficient in Taijutsu and stealth, but was still unable to unlock her chakra (the fact that she mentioned it at all was telling). She also said she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps.

Ban Rio was a scrappy-looking kid, obviously poorer. His parents were both genin, and he seemed very confident in his fighting ability, though I got the feeling that said confidence was unwarranted. He strongly gave off brawler vibes, and though he was substantially bigger than every other kid in this batch, he wouldn't be able to keep such a considerable size advantage forever. Especially when chakra was introduced as the great equalizer. After being prompted by Yoshiro-sensei, he grudgingly admitted he had trouble with reading and maths. He wanted to be a taijutsu specialist, which made me scoff internally. I had a great deal of respect for the art, but you had to be exceptional at it to constitute any sort of threat, especially in Iwa.

Chinen Satoshi was next. He was clearly more sheltered, wore spectacles, and his clothes were conspicuously unfit for physical activity. He would need to fix all of that, but I didn't think Yoshiro-sensei would say anything, and instead allow him to learn the hard way. Maybe I would talk to him myself, and let him know that shinobi who needed corrective lenses always wore special goggles, which never fell off and were a lot more suitable for combat. He wanted to be a strategist, though it was clear he had no idea what that entailed.

When he spoke, I learned that he was from a civilian family, and that he was a part of the First Generation Shinobi Outreach Program, something the Tsuchikage's administration introduced in the wake of the last war. Businesses would get tax and utility breaks if the children of the families who owned them enlisted in the academy. Which also explained why the boy was so clearly out of his depth—he didn't know the first thing about being a shinobi. Though he did know how to read and write "very well," and he was good with numbers and money. He also knew how to sew.

Then came Doi Hayato, one of the few clan kids in this batch, who I had noted during the Tsuchikage's demonstration. His parents were both jonin, and were in the process of passing on their skills as swordsmen and stealth specialists onto their son. He said that he was so far proficient in both, but he said it like someone who was clearly understating his abilities. He had a difficult time coming up with a weakness, though he ironically settled on "overthinking and indecisiveness." He'd be someone to watch out for.

Go Yosuke was another civilian-born, and he and Satoshi might as well have been the same person. He was a touch more clued into the shinobi lifestyle, and the two of them looked fairly different as well; Yosuke was blond and wore no glasses. But his skills and weaknesses were the same. He wanted to be in shinobi administration.

Hatanaka Sho followed, and he was shinobi born, with both parents being chunin. Apparently, they were also in the same academy batch, and if he wasn't a young child, I would have been suspicious about why he would have included that tidbit. He said his strengths were his endurance and physical conditioning (though he didn't use those words). His hands were bandaged like mine, though a lot more haphazardly, and I think that there were actual scrapes and bruises underneath them. He wanted to be a frontline fighter.

Then came Higa Mari, a thuggish looking girl with an ever present scowl and short black hair. Her father was a jonin, her mother was a genin, and she also listed physical conditioning as her strengths and reading comprehension as her weakness. I was sensing a trend with shinobi raised kids. She said her father didn't have a specialty, which was rare for a jonin, and that she wasn't sure if she wanted to specialize either.

It was then that Yoshiro-sensei interjected, apparently deciding it fit to reveal something that would happen later on in our education.

"During your sixth semester at the academy," he revealed "you will be assigned a specialization, chosen by a committee composed of myself and several other masters who will have secretly evaluated you over the course of your schooling. We will come to a decision based on the personal attributes we see in you, your abilities, and the village's needs. Your wishes and your family's wishes will not be taken into account. Once that happens, you will take small-group classes, in which you will receive personalized instruction and practice."

While I liked the sound of that in general, I was not a fan of the "your wishes will not be taken into account" part. Something that was echoed by my classmates, in their expressions at least. They were too afraid of Yoshiro-sensei to vocalize their thoughts, however.

"I understand, sensei," Mari said. "I have no issue with that."

He nodded in appreciation and cued Hirose Daigo to introduce himself next. The boy had a jonin father and a genin mother, and physically didn't stand out in any aspect other than his eyes, which were acid green. Then he revealed what he wanted to specialize in.

"I'm proficient in genjutsu," he said blandly, and I all but I all but balked at the wording. He was proficient? Not, he was learning? Most of these kids hadn't even unlocked their chakra yet—some didn't even know what it was.

"My weakness is auditory genjutsu," he continued. "I wish to be a support-type ninja."

"Do not practice your genjutsu on any of your fellow students," Yoshiro-sensei said sharply, and Daigo frowned.

"Mochiron, sensei," he replied. "My father has been very stringent in disciplining me on the matter. Do not worry, I will not test myself in this setting."

Satisfied, Yoshiro-sensei nodded and called my name. It seemed like it was my turn.

While I had been half listening to my batchmates' introductions, I had been mostly distracted thinking about what the fuck I should say.

How should I play this? I needed to offset my not great first impression somehow, so should I take a friendly approach to make people like me? That might have worked if Iwao wasn't a factor. I'd never be able to contend with him in terms of popularity, and I really, really didn't care to try. If—when—his feelings towards me came out, no amount of smiles or laughs would protect me.

My alternative would be a lot less mentally taxing on myself, theoretically. And it might be better for branding, later on. But holy fuck was it annoying, and it would make me the biggest hypocrite to ever reincarnate in the elemental nations.

"Imai Kasaiki," Yoshiro-sensei called, and I sighed as I stood up at my desk. Immediately, I could see my classmates perk up, eyeing me with poorly disguised interest. I was the biggest wildcard to them; conspicuously smaller, but I somehow arrived at the classroom before all of them.

I hummed lowly. "My name is Imai Kasaiki," I said. "My parents were heroes—jonin who were disabled in the war. Instead of retiring, they chose to act as a final defense against invaders, and were stationed in Fugatoro, a small town near the border of the Land of Grass. One month after I was born, they were murdered by Leaf-nin, who massacred the entire town. They set it ablaze, and the smoke scarred my lungs permanently. I was rescued, and survived against all odds to be raised by my god brother. He named me Kasaiki, because that is my destiny. To burn Konoha to the ground, just like they did to my home. To do that, I will become the strongest frontline ninja you will ever meet."

I paused to let that sink in before continuing. "My strengths… hmm. I am skilled with chakra, and have learned the few ninjutsu people have been willing to teach me rapidly. My chakra reserves are quite large for my age, and my control is above average as well. Taijutsu…my technique is good, but I don't think I will have much talent in the art until I grow a little. I have no training in other shinobi disciplines, though I do possess some theoretical knowledge when it comes to biology and medicine. My greatest weakness is that I am impatient."

I bowed my head. "Yoroshiku onegai shimasu."

"What ninjutsu do you know, Imai-san?" Yoshiro-sensei asked, and if the circumstances were different, I would have clicked my tongue in annoyance. It offended my sensibilities to show all the cards in my hand, but I had already claimed to know multiple, and I only had two period.

I flirted through hand seals for my Chisana Hikari jutsu, which garnered some gasps. Then I flickered through the seals for the Kawarimi, and substituted myself with an empty chair in the back of the room.

"You know the replacement technique?" Sensei asked rhetorically, his normal, mild frown still present. I couldn't fathom a guess as to what he thought of that revelation.

"Hai, sensei," I answered anyway. "So far, it seems ninjutsu comes naturally to me. I am eager to expand my repertoire."

"There's the impatience you spoke of," he said cuttingly, and god damnit this dude was really annoying me. Had he already decided I was on his shit list?

"Ishida Iwao," he called next, and my old friend stood up, scowling at me. I schooled my expression into something neutral.

"I'm Ishida Iwao," he introduced. "My father is one of the co-leaders of the Red Ogres."

That got as much of a reaction as my demonstration, which was kind of bullshit but whatever. I understood; the Red Ogres were Iwa's equivalent to Konoha's ANBU, and the quasi-shadow organization was both romanticized and feared in equal measure. Having the son of one of its leaders in your academy class was kind of like finding out you were in a class with the kid of an oil baron back on earth.

What a dumbass. If I was Iwao, I would have taken that information to the grave. Everyone would be kissing his ass now, and by extension, making my life miserable.

"I want to follow in his footsteps. My strengths are my speed and my intelligence," he claimed. "My weakness… Tou-san says I'm too passive sometimes."

Yoshiro-sensei nodded in acceptance. "Ishii Masaru?"

He was another civilian born. Nothing special to note.

"Ishimoto Eiji?"

Here was an interesting one. This little dude was an early enrollee, just like me. His father was a jonin, and I wondered if he was his patron. Eiji didn't volunteer that information, however. His strengths were taijutsu, and he had some knowledge of chakra as well. He didn't know ninjutsu like me, but he had unlocked it.

There wasn't much interesting about Iwai Katashi, but he was followed by the introduction of the Konjiki twins, Katsuo and Katsume.

I was surprised to find that there was a clan of lava release users, as there were many practitioners in the anime from all over the elemental nations. Yoton seemed to manifest in a wide variety of ways; Kurotsuchi, the future Yondaime Tsuchikage, could do that cement thing, Terumi Mei, the future Mizukage could wield traditional lava, and there was that guy in Kumo that had that rubber lava release technique. Didn't get that one at all, but whatever.

The twins seemed impressive. They had my level of physical conditioning, but they were a year older, and I didn't fancy my chances in a spar with them. They hadn't unlocked their chakra yet, but Katsuo, the boy, felt it necessary to tell us why. Probably because he felt self conscious from all the self-identified chakra users in the batch.

He claimed their bloodline made lava release instinctual, and their natures tended to creep into any chakra they emit. So they kept their chakra locked as a precaution. Now that he mentioned it, I think I recalled hearing something to that effect in the anime. If it was true, I would emphatically support their self-restraint.

Machi Aimi was next, and I pitied her immediately. Not only was she a civilian as clueless as Satoshi, she was also a girl. Sexism was very much a thing, as evidenced by the male to female ratio in this batch and the shinobi forces beyond. It could also be seen in the specializations of said kunoichi. The stereotypes in my last world were similar, though there were some differences as well.

The biggest sexists had to watch their fucking backs, though. Iwa kunoichi were a lot less passive than civilized people were expected to be back on Earth, and many had the physical might and inclination to retaliate against assholes.

I couldn't wait until someone tried that shit with me.

Unfortunately, little Aimi did not fall into that category. She stammered all throughout the introduction, and projected more unsurety and delicacy than Hinata. If she wanted to survive in this world, something big needed to change.

Nagao Takeshi was another background character with a jonin father and a genin mother, making him the fourth person so far in that situation. Once or twice I wouldn't have blinked at, but four? That made me suspicious. Men in positions of power marrying women of a much lower station, whose circles likely never touched…it left a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe it was nothing, and maybe there was a perfectly benign reason I couldn't see yet, but it was something I should look into when I was in a position to do something about it.

There weren't any other interesting people in my class, and my brain was reaching its retaining information about new people limit. God, I wish I had Observe.

Osaki Ken was a kid of low level shinobi. Oye Kyo was civilian born. Tengan Nao, Uemura Nobu, Usui Ichiro, Watanabe Misao were all the kids of low and mid rank shinobi as well. Yamada Eiji might have promise, but he was lackluster compared to the other Eiji. And finally, came Yasui Shiori, who was only notable for her white hair.

"Now that you are all acquainted," Yoshiro-sensei drawled, "remember. From this very moment, you are comrades. Iwa is surrounded on all sides by enemy nations that would wish death and destruction upon us. The only ones we can trust are ourselves. We must stand united, or we will die alone."

Together we stand, divided we fall. A common expression back in my original world, mixed with an undercurrent of xenophobia for flavor.

The only ones we could trust are ourselves.

Same shit, different world I guess. But what did I expect? This was Iwagakure no fucking Sato.

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

AN: Sorry for the info dump of names—I'm not too happy about it either. I had a strong temptation to go with the selfish, not caring about others motif for Kasaiki, but I decided it didn't suit her character. Besides, it's important for later down the line. My goal is to develop all, or at least most, of her batch. As Yoshiro said, they'll be important pieces, even after graduation.

God it's exhausting, though. This chapter took me twice the amount of time to write as all the other ones so far. I suck at coming up with names—them being in Japanese only makes it harder. I believe picking generic names is a waste of opportunity, so most of them were chosen with a purpose. I invite you to look up their meanings, so all my work doesn't go to waste.

Regarding what might seem like OOCness on behalf of Yoshiro. Konoha's Will of Fire most notably pertains to teamwork, so it's easy to tie that ideal to Konoha exclusively. But Iwa's will of stone doesn't contradict its importance; its take on it is simply more impersonal. For Konoha, teamwork means growing a close personal attachment to your comrades, so you will fight with all your heart to protect them. For Iwa, teamwork is simply about efficiency. You don't have to get along, but when it comes down to it, you will work together seamlessly or you will die.

It is the height of stupidity for any military structure, in the real world or in fantasy, not to emphasize teamwork. And interestingly enough, we have, in the Naruto world, an example of what happens when a military structure does just that.

AKA, Kirigakure no Sato. Objectively the worst of the Five Great Nations, until Mei takes over at least. It's shinobi hoard power, only driven to obtain it out of the fear that their own comrades might kill them on a whim, and likely face no punishment for doing so. They live in constant fear and distrust, fighting as individuals instead of as a cohesive unit. It's no wonder they have a special unit specifically tasked with eliminating missing nin. And the bloodline massacre was a big ole' oof; they literally eliminated a great deal of their military might out of paranoia.

No way in hell would that happen in Iwa. Power is everything to them—collective power. The closest they come to doing this is by making the jinchuriki outcasts, but honestly, that's kinda common sense (if they lack the knowledge about biju that we're privy to). Their fuinjutsu knowledge is basically in the stone age, and, as far as they know, their greatest enemies can turn them into weapons of mass destruction. To Iwa, the purpose of having jinchuriki isn't to utilize their power, but to simply keep them out of the other nations' hands.

That's my take, at least. Hope it clears things up.