"Lord Hokage!" Kakashi exclaimed in denial. He came in under the Hokage's command, but his face expressed that he regretted that decision. "I can't house a kid—especially him." Kakashi finished pointing towards Hachi who looked annoyed at the sudden finger.

"You're not the only person in this situation." Hachi scoffed, his well-mannered self from before had completely vanished. The Hokage noted this change in character silently.

"Well, you found this kid outside our village and now he wants to reside here. You should take responsibility and let him stay with you." The Hokage reasoned, making Kakashi sigh.

"Yes sir."

"Now, from what I heard, you slipped past Kakashi at the gates." The Hokage looked at Kakashi with an amused smile and Kakashi looked down in shame, most likely embarrassed to have a child run right past his nose. Though it was only for a second, what Hachi did was still an impressive feat for his young age.

"Yes, though I think he caught on to me after a few minutes," Hachi replied, sneering at Kakashi. Kakashi's eyes widened.

He knew? Kakashi thought. Hachi knew that he was being followed even though Kakashi made sure to be undetected. Kakashi severely underestimated this child if that is true.

Of course, Hachi didn't know shit. He was only speculating. If Kakashi came out to get him right when the children left, he was probably watching him from an unknown location. Hachi couldn't sense anything, but the timing of Kakashi was too perfect to be coincidental.

"Well… that isn't something a regular kid from the academy could do. Are you a ninja?" The Hokage asked.

Hachi hesitated, "Not exactly sir… I was taken before I could graduate." The Hokage nodded in understanding while Kakashi was taken aback at the new information.

Taken? Kakashi stared incredulously at the child. What did he mean? Hopefully, he meant that he moved somewhere else, but this is the shinobi world. The world is brutal. Kakashi's heartfelt a slight pity for Hachi, but it quickly was buried deep.

"Did you want to graduate here then?" The Hokage's offer took Hachi by surprise.

"I'm sorry?" Hachi asked.

"Lord Hokage, but he could be dangerous!" Kakashi exclaimed. "How can we trust this child?"

"Are you doubting me Kakashi?" The Hokage's question immediately shut down Kakashi.

"No sir."

"I agree with Kakashi. How can you trust me?" Hachi asked. Kakashi turned his head quickly.

He agrees with me? He thought, staring at Hachi again.

Hachi wasn't stupid, but he certainly thought the Hokage was at that moment. His naivety is gonna bring the village to ruins.

"I told you. You are granted permanent residency here. You might as well become a ninja here. I'm sure we will gain a talented shinobi." The Hokage explained. The Hokage wasn't stupid. He saw the potential of Hachi. If Hachi were to be cultivated by the Leaf, he would be a great asset. He can't let this child be in the hands of the other villages, especially the Leaf's enemies.

The Hokage knew that this was a selfish and cruel thing to do to Hachi, but he was willing to sacrifice a child's future for the sake of the village. He smiled at Hachi, waiting for his answer. If he refused, the Hokage would make sure that Hachi would be trapped in the village so no one else would get their hands on him. Secretly, he hoped for Hachi to accept his proposal. Accepting his offer would ensure a better life for Hachi anyway and it would ease the Hokage's conscience.

"I… accept," Hachi said. The Hokage let out a small sigh of relief.

"Ok, then I'll place you with the nine-year-olds. They will graduate in three years, so that would probably be enough time to get you used to training." The Hokage said, getting ready to write another report to send to the academy.

"No."

"I'm sorry?" The Hokage was taken back by the sudden defiance.

"I'm not graduating with a bunch of kids that are younger than me. I'm graduating with kids that are the same age as me." Hachi explained, clenching his fists.

"And how old are you?"

"Twelve."

"Those kids are graduating in a few months. You can't catch up with them in time." The Hokage said nonchalantly, still set on putting him with the younger class.

"You said so yourself, Lord Hokage." Hachi spit out the others' names with venom. "I could be a great asset to the village. How am I gonna be a great asset if I can't even graduate with the kids that are the same age as me? I'm not completely stupid or incapable. I can fight."

"You brat, don't get cocky just because you slipped under my nose for a second." Kakashi butt in, having enough of Hachi's attitude.

"I'm not. I know where I stand when it comes to my capabilities." Hachi stated sending out a small glare towards Kakashi.

"Ok. If you're so confident in your abilities, it's only fair that we test it out." The Hokage said, catching both Hachi and Kakashi off guard. The Hokage stopped his report.

"Raido," From the shadows, a shinobi stepped out. He had a noticeable scar running from his nose to almost the side of his ear. The shinobi bowed and kneeled the Hokage.

"You called for me, Lord Third," Raido said with a low voice.

"Yes, I need you to have a small fight with this child." Everyone in the room looked shocked and Raido's head shot up to have a better look at Hachi. Hachi took this moment to take in anything about the man that would be of use to him. Raido slipped into the office unnoticed by Hachi which meant the man in front of him right now was highly skilled. He was at least a high chunin in rank, but Hachi figured he would be jounin. The Hokage seemed to be sadistic in that sense.

Hachi realized this situation was going to be tricky. If they were to spar, Hachi would easily get beaten.

"You want me to fight… a child?" Raido questioned. His tone of voice immediately pissed Hachi off. Underestimating an opponent is the first thing you don't want to do, no matter how good you are.

"Don't you look down on me." Hachi said deathly quietly. Raido flinched slightly at the sudden change in Hachi's demeanor. He was impressed.

The Hokage explained the situation to Raido and he nodded along, glancing at Hachi a few times. Raido sighed in defeat; he couldn't go against the Hokage's orders. It's just going to be a small fight with a child. This would be done in a few seconds.

"Since I think everyone is in agreement, let's head to the training grounds, shall we?" The Hokage said with a smile and got out of his seat to get out of his stuffy office. If he was right, this fight would be most entertaining to watch.

Hachi began planning the second the Hokage said he would be tested. Once Raido stepped into the Hokage's office, it was settled: Hachi would fake a limp. So when everyone followed the Hokage out, Hachi began his one-man show. While it wasn't the most obvious thing, the change in Hachi's actions brought up suspicion between the elders—especially Kakashi and the Hokage—since Hachi didn't have a limp until a few minutes ago.

The limp was only to throw off Raido. If people were to see it, it probably looked like a childhood injury that didn't heal the right way. Kakashi narrowed his eyes at Hachi at the sudden change, to which Hachi responded with a small mischievous smirk. Kakashi huffed a bit and quickened his pace to catch up to the Hokage more.

Once they reached the training ground, Hachi examined the field. He needed anything and everything to take down his opponent. Utilizing the terrain would be a huge advantage for him, but Hachi wasn't used to these training grounds. He didn't have these kids off training grounds back home. It was only as big as his backyard (since he did only practice in his backyard), but the ones in Konoha seemed to go on for miles with vast clumps of trees here and there. The unfamiliar territory made Hachi swallow a hard lump in his throat.

"You don't need to do much, just impress Raido. If you do that, you'll be set for the academy." The Hokage explained.

"What about weapons?" Hachi asked, clutching his small bag of meager things.

"You can use whatever you want. I'll only use my bare hands to defend myself." Raido answered for the Hokage.

"Spread out. You'll begin at my command." The Hokage said. Raido and Hachi distanced themselves with Hachi's limp still at hand. Hachi checked the weapons he had.

He stole the weapons when he was running away from the Doctor and didn't have time to think about what he was grabbing, but he soon got to know well of the weapons he carried on the way here.

He needed to come up with a plan. He knew he had some paper bombs, so his big plan was to use those. Hachi continued to fumble around the bag for more supplies, hoping that everything was still there and none of them fell out. Once he felt the familiar metal wires, Hachi almost leaped from joy.

"Alright, Raido… try not to hurt him too much." The Hokage warned. While this was just for Hachi's safety, it still irked him the wrong way.

Even the Hokage doesn't trust me . Hachi thought, but this was fine. He needed to win this. He needed to prove himself. If underestimating an opponent was a habit for these elders, Hachi will use it to his advantage. He needed to come up with a plan quickly.

"Ready," The Hokage said and Hachi panicked. He was most certainly not ready. "Set… go!" The Hokage shouted.

Hachi immediately tried to get as far away from Raido as possible, but it was no use. In an instant, Raido was right in front of Hachi, getting ready to throw a punch. Hachi was surprised, he knew he was fast, but to see such acceleration was something else. It was a small reality check. Hachi knew danger when he saw it, he dodge the punch, but found himself kicked to the ground.

The wind was knocked out of Hachi's lungs, but he didn't have time to revel in pain and dodged the oncoming punch from Raido again. Raido punched the ground and it made a small crater. Hachi's eyes widened. He shook his head. This wasn't the time to be impressed.

Raido came at Hachi again without breaking a sweat. Hachi poured chakra into his legs and leaped to the side, but before he could fully escape, Raido switched his momentum to the side and hammer kicked Hachi to the ground. Hachi's face met dirt. He couldn't even catch his breath as he was dodging and weaving between Raido's attacks

"I thought you said you were going to defend yourself." Hachi hissed while gritting his teeth, to which Raido smirked.

"I lied." Hachi snarled, lifting himself off the ground leaving residues of his sweat and blood.

If Hachi was going to be on defense, there's no chance that he would impress Raido. It was time to switch up his course of action.

Hachi focused chakra into his legs and lunged at Raido with incredible speed. I'll show you how to fucking lie, you dipshit . While the test had gone on for a few minutes, Hachi never let up his act of having a limp. He was hoping that Raido will continue to target Hachi's weak spot to become blind to his own right side.

Raido calmly stepped out of Hachi's lunge. Hachi slightly panicked as he found himself lunging at a tree. In a split second, Hachi manipulated his body to quickly turn and plant his legs at the stump of the tree and pushed off, bolting to Raido.

Raido's eyes widened at the speed at which Hachi reacted, but he quickly side-stepped once more to dodge Hachi's second attempt.

It was now Raido's turn to attack. If Hachi attacked, it would be disadvantageous for Raido. He kept trying to attack Hachi's right side, which had the limp, hoping for a slip-up.

Hachi dodged to the left ungracefully, almost resulting in an actual limp. To the outsider's eyes, Hachi was nothing more than a coward that was running away, but it was all a part of his plan. All he needed to do was continue to dodge Raido's attacks. If Hachi got caught, he would be dead. At least, that was the plan until Raido landed a solid blow on his ribs which sent Hachi flying.

Hachi heard a few cracks and he crumbled to the ground, biting back a scream. His body was begging for him to give up now as white searing pain flared up at his side. He needed to end this fight now . Hachi held his ribs, desperately trying to stop the pain. Raido walked up to him.

"Give up yet?" Raido had a boastful expression.

"Eat my shit," Hachi murmured, gathering chakra up to his hands and rubbing his ribs to, at least, ease the pain. Hachi didn't know much about medical ninjutsu, but he knew that he was almost an expert when it came to chakra control.

While it is impossible to move when one has broken ribs, Hachi had countless chemicals in his body right now. Adrenaline with drugs was not a new type of high to Hachi and that was why he lifted himself from the ground, startling everyone around him.

"What are you doing? Stop moving, you should have broken ribs right now." Raido shouted with concern.

"Since when did you care?" Hachi questioned, shutting Raido up, "Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm stubborn as hell. If I say I'll do something, I do it, so I'm fucking graduating with the next class." Hachi finished with a yell and lunged once more at Raido. A newfound strength was pushing Hachi. He almost seemed to teleport in front of Raido.

Hachi raised his chakra-infused fist and aimed for Raido. He dodged quickly and Hachi landed the blow at the ground, creating a crater. To say that Raido was surprised was an understatement. For a kid to have such strength was incredible.

Raido leaped out of the way, but it was too late. Hachi had been planting wires through senbon needles throughout Raido's arm when he kept trying to evade his attacks. It was almost invisible to the eye, especially when Hachi also had a small genjutsu up to cover the needles.

Raido raised his arm for the next attack but realized that he couldn't move his arm. Hachi released the genjutsu for Raido to look at his arm only to see the numerous wires that were entangling it. The wires all connected with the terrain around it. Raido spotted a single paper bomb in the midst of the wires that hung very close to his arm.

So that was it … Raido understood the aftermath of this battle if it were to continue. This kid… Raido looked up at Hachi after seeing the playground of wires on his arm.

"You pass," Raido said with a sigh of defeat.

"Of course I did," Hachi said with a smug expression.

"Don't get too cocky, if this were a real battle, you wouldn't stand a chance," Raido growled, getting a spare kunai knife to cut the wires.

"Yeah, but it wasn't a real battle," Hachi emphasized, pissing Raido off even more.

"So how did you do this?" Raido asked and the Hokage and Kakashi gathered, also curious about Hachi's elaborate plan.

"Well, from the first moment that I saw you, I knew I needed the upper hand. Judging from how I was unable to sense you when you arrived, you were most likely a chunin or above, but judging from your scar, you are probably a jounin—"

"Wait, you deduced that I was a jounin based on my scar? Anyone of any rank could have this scar." Raido interrupted.

"Well yes, but your scar runs deep. The depth of your scar means that it was most likely life-threatening. If you were facing an enemy as a genin or a low-level chunin, you probably would have died; however, if you were skilled enough to defeat the enemy as a chunin, you would have been promoted to jounin either way." Hachi explained. The adults glanced at each other.

"Go on." The Hokage ordered.

"Well, since I recognized you were highly skilled, I faked a limp so you would purposefully target my right side. When people are targeting a certain spot, they tend to forget about protecting themselves." Hachi explained and Raido looked away in embarrassment. To be bested by a child and forgetting such a small thing was a huge low blow to Raido.

"While it was thought up on the spot and not perfect, to say the least, I planned to use my limp to attach senbon needles with wires around ur arm to immobilize it. It was a stupid plan that I thought up because I was panicked." Hachi started mumbling and looked down in discomfort.

"Why would you think it was a stupid plan? It worked didn't it?" Raido said, cutting off Hachi again.

"Well yeah, but that was because you were stupid. As you said, if this was a real battle, I would be dead." Raido grit his teeth at a small insult, but chose to ignore it.

"Regardless, as you said, it isn't a real battle," Raido said with a small smile.

Hachi looked up to him with a surprised face. "Yeah, it wasn't." Hachi had a pleasant expression.

"What did you do then?" The Hokage asked, curious for the continuation of Hachi's plan.

"I used genjutsu to make sure Raido doesn't notice anything wrong with his arm. All I needed to do was continue dodging his attack and he would've fallen into my trap, but then he kicked me." Hachi grumbled, clutching his still broken ribs. Raido scratched the back of his head and muttered a small sorry.

"I used my punch to trigger the tightening of the wires since it was all connected to the trees. If I sent a large enough source of vibrations, it would tighten, though I was hoping not to do that since that was a waste of energy. If Raido kept moving, the wires would tighten on their own, but I figured I needed to end the battle now with my broken ribs and all."

"Don't you need to go to the doctor?" Kakashi asked all of a sudden.

"Eh, it's fine," Hachi answered with a shrug. The adults once again glanced at each other but didn't press further.

"Well, I must say… you are impressive, Kobayashi-kun." The Hokage chuckled, making Hachi look down in embarrassment. He knew that he was better than most academy students, but to hear it from such an important figure was a different feeling.

"Hmm… you're intelligent and quick. You have excellent chakra control and strength, no doubt. Good speed and taijutsu with an affinity for genjutsu. I'm guessing ninjutsu is something you are not particularly good at?" The Hokage listed off his observations to which I nodded.

"I don't have a lot of strength, that's all chakra. I don't know anything about fuinjutsu or kenjutsu. I'm not that smart, I just work fast on my feet and my plans are usually based on luck. If something goes wrong by a hair, my plans would all fail. There's nothing great about me right now." Hachi said.

The Hokage let out a laugh, "You're too humble. Give yourself some credit. This is a great start. You know your weaknesses. Most people don't even think about that."

Hachi blushed at the praise. He wasn't used to people complimenting him. He just decided to accept it. It would probably insult the Hokage if he were to deny anything.

"Well… since you passed, you're gonna need a tutor. I think Raido would do nicely." With this news, Raido and I glanced at each other.

"Uhh… what?" Hachi asked, a bit dumbfounded. They were just at each other's throats, but now Raido is going to be his teacher? It didn't make any sense.

"You need a tutor for you to graduate next year, right?" The Hokage asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, but—"

"Excellent, then it's settled." The Hokage left no room for any say on the matter. Hachi closed his mouth and pouted, looking at the floor. This was not how he envisioned the end of the test.

"Well, you should head home with Kakashi, you can start going to the academy in a week." The Hokage declared and everyone nodded, not daring to go against the Hokage's words.

Raido and Hachi shook hands as a sign of respect and to signify their new relationship as teacher and student.

"Meet me every day at this training ground at 8 AM sharp starting tomorrow," Raido said and Hachi could do nothing but nod. He was excited to start official training after almost 4 years. His body was rusty on technical skills since everything he knew was based on survival and not training.

Once everything was settled with Raido and the Hokage, Raido and the Hokage left for the office. Kakashi and Hachi waited till the Hokage was out of sight to leave for Kakashi's house.

A sigh escaped Kakashi's lips at the exhausting day he had witnessed. "Let's go."

Kakashi led the way and Hachi tried to follow once again, but before Hachi could take a step, he crumbled on the ground.

The drugs and adrenaline finally wore off completely, leaving Hachi vulnerable. It was the only thing giving Hachi the energy to move and it was also a natural painkiller from Hachi's body. With it gone, Hachi's body finally registered the danger and pain it was in.

His vision was blurry and Hachi took notice of the cold sweat that he had been perspiring. Since when was he sweating so much? Was it since Raido broke his ribs?

Hachi was not in the right mind and he couldn't hear the panicked shouts from Kakashi. It wasn't long for Hachi to completely lose consciousness.

Kakashi cursed in frustration. He was frustrated at himself for not doing anything when Hachi was in pain. How did he hide it so well? A kid should not have the ability to stand, let alone move around with broken bones, but here is Hachi: doing it all.

This kid really is incredible … Kakashi thought as he carefully picked him up. The nearest hospital was ten minutes away by foot, but if Kakashi pushed it, he could cut that time down by half. Kakashi rushed off.

Hang on there, kid.