Life in the orphanage was boring for a man stuck in the body of a six year old. Playing hide and seek and pretending to be a ninja was freeing for the first few times, but after two weeks, Dojinro decided to always be the one caught first so he could sit under the shade of the tree in the orphanage.
Occasionally, the monk running the orphanage, Tsumugi, would join him. Though 'monk' was a generous description for him, Tsumugi looked more the part of a beggar than anything else. He grew his hair and beard out and wore a dirty gray robe with sewn patches of different shades. He constantly took swigs from a gourd the size of his head, which judging by his breath and his slightly flushed face, probably contained some watered down rice liquor. Oh, and Dojinro was pretty sure he ate meat too.
Even then, Tsumugi was an adequate companion compared to the rest of the children. He found the restless spirit of youth tiring to deal with. Tsumugi didn't speak much, and when he did it was usually some senseless drunken babble that he found amusing. If the old man happened to fall asleep, he also found the gentle snoring gave a nice rhyme for his meditation exercises.
Next month would be different though, next month he would be enrolled into the academy. Most of the orphans would, that was the purpose of this place after all, to congregate the children of the fallen shinobis and funnel them into the system. In fact, he was rather surprised that the village did not start training them sooner, but the war probably spread the logistics quite thin.
That suited him though, when he first realized his predicament, he thought to make something of himself, invent a forbidden technique, become the strongest in the village, Kazekage didn't sound too bad as a title. Then he read up on the history of Sunagakure and he was less certain. The first and the second Kazekage were both assassinated, and from his murky memory of this world, the third's disappearance was probably happening soon. With Sasori still in the village, making a name for oneself as a prodigy did not sound like the best idea.
That was if he could be a prodigy at all. Dojinro did not know anything about his parents, but they probably weren't anything special. When he first understood the chakra flowing within him, and attempted to stick a piece of paper on his forehead, he was exhausted after a few tries. Pitiful levels of chakra reserve most likely, with a somewhat subpar control that slowly got better over the years. He did find that his pool grew larger as he got older, meditation helped with that too. Tsumugi once told him offhandedly that he felt a surprising amount of spiritual energy residing inside Dojinro, most likely a product of having a mature mind. Maybe the monk knew his stuff after all.
From his understanding, the combination of physical energy and spiritual energy made up the chakra. The training for spiritual energy was easy, he enjoyed sitting cross-legged under the shade and taking his mind far away from here, thinking of his old life, all the possibilities and effects of his presence in the world, or just what food he was craving that day. The training for physical energy… not so much. After a week of doing push ups and running laps around the orphanage, he decided the effort was not worth the reward, I will start again next month… training too early will stunt my growth… I'll wait til my body grows up more. He eventually gave up and decided to start the physical training once he was in the academy.
The noise of children running through the front door broke his meditation and he opened his eyes. He looked to the orange setting sun, it was dinner time. Tsumugi might be a sorry excuse of a monk, but he did make sure that everyone was fed. That was until a few months ago, when the rations in the front lines grew tighter, and the food in the orphanage reflected that. A serving of gray mush today, some sort of mashed yam and beans. And a bone broth that could probably be described as soupy water. Not that Dojinro was complaining, a hot meal in his belly was all he needed right now.
Tsumugi set the two giant pots of mash and broth on the porch and the kids lined up quickly. When they got their food, they found their own spots in the yard and sat down. Dojinro, being one of the first in the line, got to keep his spot by the tree.
Wahi joined him after his third spoonful of mash. He was the biggest kid that was of Dojinro's age, both in length and width. Early on, Dojinro decided that if he couldn't be the most powerful shinobi, might as well be the friend of the most powerful shinobi, Wahi was the closest to that. Wahi didn't talk much, but from what he knew, Wahi's parents were reputed shinobis, jonins who led a division in the east against the Konoha. Though if they were truly strong they probably would have survived… oh well.
Two years ago, when Wahi first arrived at the orphanage, Dojinro seized the opportunity and gave Wahi a few spoonfuls of his food. After that it was their ritual of sorts for him to save a little bit of his food and give it to Wahi during dinner. It did not affect him much anyway, Tsumugi liked him so he always topped up Dojinro's bowl.
Later on, Dojinro started to enjoy Wahi's company, he didn't talk much and listened mostly, nodding yes or no occasionally. In the mornings, they would do their chakra control exercises together, and then Wahi would go to the other kids and play their childish games, and at night Dojinro would share his dinner. Eventually, when Wahi stuck the paper on his forehead before him, it was not jealousy he felt, but a sense of pride, one from an older brother.
"Have you thought about the entry exam?" He asked Wahi.
The boy nodded, he only opened his mouth to gulp down another mouthful of mash.
"What do you think they will test us on?"
The boy looked to the sky in thought, and shrugged.
"No ninjutsu, or genjutsu right?"
The boy nodded again.
"Taijutsu?"
The boy pursed his lips.
"Is that a maybe?"
Another nod.
"We should start running around the yard tomorrow. Build some stamina."
Nod.
"Okay, that's a deal."
Dojinro went back to his room shared with nine other boys. From his experience, it was better to fall asleep before the other children come in, or else the room would be stuffed with the pungent smell of sweat and dirt, with the addition of some snoring, it would ruin anyone's night.
…
Time Skip: One Month Later
…
The entrance exam was non- existent, their group of orphans came to the school early, way earlier than the other children. They all ran a few laps in the front yard, Dojinro lost count after the third. None of the orphans fell behind and so none of them were cut. After that, they each signed a waiver, no doubt signing their lives away to the village. Funny that most of them could not yet read. Dojinro was still scanning at the halfway point when the chunin in front of him hurried him up. Well, not like he was going to give up at this point. He already thought about what he was going to do. Get stronger until Sunagakure decides to ally themselves with Orochimaru, then he would desert right before the attack on Konoha. Sound plan, he would probably convince Wahi to go with him… something to think about for another day.
It felt strange to finally step into a classroom again, under much different circumstances, here they were trained to kill. The room was spacious and around fifty desks and chairs filled the room. Dojinro doubted that all of these chairs would be filled. Suna never had a big population, and with a war that seemed like it would last forever, the enrollment rate was not great. At least they got the orphans.
On top of the blackboard in the front, there were three portraits, The first, the second, and the third Kazekage. Truly a tragic end for all of them. Though not recorded in any history books, it was a common gossip in Suna that both the first and the second were assassinated by the people within, whether for a selfish gain or for the good of the village, that was up for much debate.
In the next hour, more children filed in, some of them were wearing significantly better clothes than everyone else. Those are the clan members I guess. They were better built too, good nutrition and training regiments probably helped. The teacher entered shortly after. She was a tall chunin who went by the name Aki. She wore the standard Suna uniform, with a dark blue paint marking across her nose. The large fan in her back drew Dojinro attention, he thought Temari was the only one using a large fan. This might get interesting.
…
Time Skip: 4 years later, 10 years old.
…
Today was a special day, the different corps would come into the academy and pick out their desired students to study their specialty. The Puppet Brigade, the Tessenjutsu Corp, the combat medics. All of the smart ones wanted to be picked, for if you joined these squads, you were most likely to survive in the long run. The ones left unchosen were usually the front line, or in other words, the meat shield.
The Puppet Brigade got the first picks. A man wrapped in giant beige cloths with a pair of purple rimmed goggles had them lined up and hands extended out, palms facing the ceiling. He meticulously checked the hands of the students one by one. When It was Dojinro's turn, the man grabbed his right hand and held it close to the goggles. Dojinro could feel the slightly heat of his breath.
"No." he moved to the next one.
"No." the next.
"Passable."
"Good, good."
He went through all of them and picked out five, Wahi was one of them. "Follow me outside." A while later, Wahi and two others came back to the classroom.
"What happened?" asked Dojinro.
"More tests." The boy replied.
"You didn't pass?"
"No." In a way, Dojinro was glad, he didn't want to part with his friend just yet. What's misery without company I guess.
Tessenjutsu meant the wielding of the iron fan. The Tessenjutsu Corp focused on dealing damage from a safe distance. Aki sensei passed each student a small piece of chakra paper. The test was quite self-explanatory, tessenjutsu required the user to have wind affinity.
"Put your chakra into the paper." Moment of truth.
As soon as he transferred some of his chakra from his fingertips to the paper, it sliced in half. Yes! Yes! Yes! Wind affinity was the most common affinity in Suna, but it was still a relief. The days of fighting in the trenches are over. He looked at Wahi next to him, and saw the paper wrinkle. Lightning Affinity, damn.
"I guess that's it then. Farewell, Wahi." He hugged the larger boy. It was an awkward hug he had to admit, to be fair he hadn't hugged anyone for a long time. When he let go, Wahi squinted his right eye a little. Is this kid judging me?
Aki led the children with wind nature out of the classroom and handed them off to a burly elder around the age of sixty.
"Goodbye then, Aki Sensei."
"Huh?" Her face was one of confusion.
"I imagine I won't be seeing you around much, now that I am in the corp."
She smacked him on the head.
" Dojinro, you didn't listen in class did you? You receive special training two times a week, the rest of the days you're still with me, you useless brat."
Well that explains everything.
" And you're not in yet, so don't embarrass me, got it?" With that, she turned around and went back to the classroom.
The old man cleared his throat. " I am Fujin. The founder of the Tessenjutsu Corp. We are an elite stock of Suna- nin dedicated to dealing maximum ranged damage against enemy combatants." He chuckled to himself. " You might have thought that you are now part of the Corp, but that thinking is naive. Many of you were recruited to the academy for the war effort. Now that the war is over, the standards of Sunagakure have returned to normal. Meaning many of you standing here today, don't deserve to be here."
" Tessenjutsu requires the mastery of wind release and the mastery of the iron fan itself in close quarter combat. All of you here have the wind affinity, the time to learn ninjutsu will come, but it is not now. You must first understand the mechanism of kenjutsu, in order to understand the basics of tessenjutsu. Right now, there are too many of you. To maintain the quality of the Tessenjutsu Corp, I will have to disqualify half of you today, and probably half of that next week."
He then pointed toward the racks of swords to his left. " Pick whichever is to your liking. Do be careful… they are live steel." Dojinro walked up to the rack, all of them were straight swords with equal width but varying length. The handles were some kind of soft wood painted black. He picked the longest one he could find, just a bit shorter than his height. Might as well simulate an iron fan.
Fujin then directed them to a circle about half the size of the classroom. " I call this trial of the first blood. I will pick your opponent for this trial. Step out of the circle, you are disqualified. Drop your sword, you are disqualified. You use another weapon other than your sword, you are disqualified. Kill your opponent, you are disqualified. One scratch, graze, prick, stab, cut of any sort onto your opponent, then you win."
After that, he paired the students up, not randomly however. He tended to pick a smaller kid against a bigger one. Seeding exists here too.
Dojinro got matched with a kid smaller in stature, though not by much. Tou was his name, he was quite ordinary looking, except his blue hair, a color unusual in Suna. His sword was much shorter, only about the length of his arm. Dojinro held his with two hands, simulating stances that could be useful. Keep your distance, and poke him. Dojinro took a deep breath. He sparred with Wahi many times before, but this was the only time where there were stakes involved.
" Begin!"