"Another one, really?" asked the Headmistress, "When will you learn that your actions have consequences?"

Naruto shrugged. The annoyingly pink paint on the walls irritated his eyes, but the little pictures of all the past and present children around Iwagakure provided something nice to stare at. The wooden chair he found himself in sat a few feet in front of the headmistress' desk. He had nothing to rest his hands on. (He assumed that the headmistress refused to provide any desk for the guest because desks made people feel safe when they were talking and she didn't want him to feel safe.)

The middle-aged woman shook her head, looked at the boy, and then shook it again before opening a filing cabinet within the desk. The ten year old wasn't tall enough to see it from over the desk, so she held it up for him. It read 'Naruto Michi Disciplinary Action Report , ' "This is number eight in the last two months. You broke Kenji's nose. He's in the hospital because of you. Do you have anything to say for yourself at all?"

Naruto tried to think of something to say. He knew from prior experience that if he said nothing, then he'd be reprimanded more harshly, and he also knew from prior experience that whatever he said couldn't be 'It was fun,' or he'd be reprimanded even more harshly. He always struggled with lying, so it took him a few seconds to come up with something. "I'm sorry?"

"Are you asking me, or are you telling me?"

"Asking?" The moment Naruto said it, he felt that was the wrong answer.

The headmistress sighed, "Why couldn't you get your act together, Naruto?" She put the paper down and looked at him with a grimace that indicated the struggle of holding back tears. Naruto didn't feel bad. He liked breaking Kenji's face, and he'd do it again if he could. She continued to speak, "I'm reporting you to the domestic corps. Maybe they can help you."

"Help me with what? I already broke his nose." Naruto realized that he made a mistake about two seconds after he said it from the expression on the headmistress' face.

"Just… Just go. They'll be around to pick you up in an hour."

It didn't take an hour. It took only twenty five minutes before a member of the domestic corps appeared in front of Naruto in a puff of smoke. He recognized her as the one that pulled him off of Reina after he'd broken her wrist a few weeks ago.

The agent extended her arm toward Naruto, beckoning him to take her hand. She wore the standard uniform they always wore, the leather vest with the red cloth underneath it, and a forehead protector with the village's crest on it. Naruto took her hand. She pulled him closer and bent down to grab him by his legs, picking him up and jumping onto the rooftop.

Naruto liked her for one big reason: she was blond. That mattered a lot. Naruto had busted a few kids' faces for making fun of his own blond hair, and felt a sense of solidarity with the older officer for that alone, even if he knew very little about her.

Naruto knew very little about the domestic corps in general. He knew that they had some job that involved stopping him from beating people up. That seemed obvious. Perhaps they did other things, but he couldn't know. Whenever he tried to ask one of their members for more information, they told him to 'stop talking,' and that he was 'in enough trouble already.' Whatever that was supposed to mean.

He knew they were fast, and good at fighting because he had socked adults before, but had never managed to tag one of the corps officers. They had something to do with 'shinobi,' he knew. He'd heard the word thrown around in reference to the people dragging him off. Whether 'shinobi' referred to something they did or something they were, he could not be certain.

The woman carrying him moved fast . Jumping from rooftop to rooftop at a rate far more rapid than they normally carried Naruto. And their direction had already veered off from the detention center (the normal destination). He had never seen this part of Iwa. All buildings in Iwagakure were chiseled into stone, but very few stood any taller than two stories. They were currently approaching a six story building within the central district of the city. A big label carved into the surface of the building above the door read 'Registration HQ' along with the Iwa crest.

The woman set Naruto down in front of it and, still holding him by the wrist, walked inside. The building had a stone floor, stone walls, and a stone ceiling. Near the back end of one of the front rooms there stood a stone desk, and seated at that desk sat a man with a stony face, wearing the same forehead protector that the woman wore, the symbol of Iwagakure plastered upon it.

The woman spoke to the man, "New recruit, he was causing trouble."

The man grunted in affirmation, "Name?"

"Naruto Michi," said the woman, "No parents, of course."

"There's an open spot in the A class."

That gave the woman pause. Naruto had no idea what they were talking about, but he supposed that this information must have been confusing.

The woman shrugged, "Run it up the chain, I guess."

The man nodded, "You can take him to class while the bureaucracy makes their decision," and with that sorted, the man handed Naruto a piece of paper, along with a curt "Don't lose this."

And they were off again, this time to a shorter building. The woman dropped him from her arms when she arrived at the front. Naruto scrambled to his feet in time to see another man with yet another forehead protector open the door with an irritated expression.

The woman spoke to the man in a monotone sort of way, "This is a new recruit, Naruto Michi. Troublemaking delinquent. He knows nothing. He's in Class A for now," and before the man could respond, she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The man sighed with his whole chest, which meant he sighed deep because he had a big chest. He stood at almost twice Naruto's size, with shoulders broad enough that Naruto could have sat on one without having to dangle his legs off. The man looked at the ten year old boy standing in front of him.

"Okay kid, let's get you inside."

Already Naruto had learned far more than his teachers at the orphanage had ever taught him.

Firstly, he had learned that the building he had been transported to was the 'academy.' Secondly, he had learned that it was an academy for shinobi. Thirdly, he had learned that shinobi were soldiers (people that fought as their job!). Fourthly, he had learned that that's what he was going to do for the rest of his life.

He did not ask if he had a choice in that last part, but even if he had, this shinobi business sure did sound like a lot of fun. Naruto ran around and fought all the time anyway, and doing it as a job seemed like a best case scenario.

He learned other things too. Within that first hour, he had been told what chakra was (that weird feeling at the bottom of your stomach) and had also been told that he would learn how to use it at some point.

He also learned that the big man's name was Ito-Sensei, and that his main instructor was named Sato-Sensei. And that Ito had a habit of talking a little bit too much.

And once Naruto had learned all that, Ito grabbed him by the wrist (Naruto was beginning to grow tired of getting grabbed by the wrist) and took him into a large classroom labeled 'Class A.'

Upon Naruto seeing his classmates in Class A, he first noticed that none of them had blond hair. He predicted that might be a problem. He then took notice of the fact that he had not expected the classroom to look like the classroom in the orphanage. He expected there to be a ring in the center of the class, like how the street fighters had, and two students punching each other inside. He was disappointed.

Ito quickly explained to Sato the situation, interrupting whatever Sato had been lecturing about. Judging from the blackboard, it looked to be something about 'stone will,' whatever that meant.

Sato, though initially frustrated with the interruption, leveled his expression when Ito finished his explanation. He looked at Naruto, and then at the other students.

"This is Naruto Michi, a new student in our class," started the instructor, "Naruto, would you please introduce yourself." It wasn't a question.

Naruto looked at Sato. He stood almost a head shorter than Ito but seemed more intimidating due to factors Naruto couldn't determine. Naruto looked back at the rest of the class, "I'm Naruto."

Ito waited a few seconds, before adopting an exasperated expression. "Say something you like, kid. A hobby or something."

"Oh. I like wrestling." Wrestling meant fighting, but his old teachers never got mad at him when he said the former.

"Good enough, go sit down. Next to the kid in the back, with the spiky hair." Whispers erupted from every child in the room. The teacher silenced them with a look, and then got back to talking about 'stone will'.

Naruto did what he asked, going up the stairs to the back of the room. The kid really did have spiky hair. It looked like he had just started to fall from a swing, and his hair had gotten stuck in that above-head free fall. Naruto sat down next to him.

The spiky-hair kid leaned over, "Bao," he whispered.

"What?"

"My name. Bao."

"Oh. I'm Naruto."

Bao looked at Naruto with a quizzical expression. "...I know?"

"Oh. Okay."

Naruto smiled. He liked Bao.

Naruto stopped paying attention to the lecture after ten minutes or so. The 'Will of Stone' seemed a platitude kind of advice that held no true value. Sato would say something about being 'unshakeable on your path,' which seemed like it made sense in some overarching kind of way (Naruto knew too well that when punching somebody, he best not change his mind 'till after the guy hits the ground) but not in any specific kind of way (Naruto understood just as well that if he moved to punch someone, and they brought up their hands to block it, he ought to kick them in the legs instead, even if that wasn't his first plan).

After thirty minutes or so of zoning out, Sato clapped his hands, immediately drawing everyone's attention.

"How about you all show off your Will of Stone on the mat? Let's go outside to work on some taijutsu."

The other kids loved that idea. Naruto had no idea what taijutsu was, but he got up with the other kids to head outside. On the way out, Sato put a hand on his shoulder.

"Kid, I know you're new. Try to watch what the other kids do and learn from them."

Naruto nodded. He had no idea what was going on, but he felt confident in his ability to figure it out. He followed the other children out the door.

Outside, they all stood around a little roped off ring that had been exactly what Naruto had imagined would have been within the lecture room. He turned to Bao, "What are we doing?"

Bao looked confused, "Sato-Sensei said taijutsu."

"What's taijutsu?"

Now Bao looked even more confused somehow, "You know, punching? Punching and kicking each other."

"So fighting then?" Naruto started to sound excited.

"Everything we do outside is fighting," Bao couldn't see the joy growing in Naruto's heart, but could see the evidence growing on his face, "This fighting is just the one with punches and kicks."

Naruto wanted to ask more questions, but before he could, Sato called out Bao's name and another student, Kogeru. The other boy had long brown hair, long enough that Naruto almost mistook him for a girl.

The two students entered the ring. The ring took the shape of a square more than a circle, defined by four stone stakes dug into the ground with rope delineating the inside from the outside. The square must've been about thirty feet in diameter, as when the two boys crouched under the rope and stepped in, the distance between them seemed massive.

The two bowed to each other, and then stood up and took wide stances and put up their hands, one in front (to gauge distance, Naruto knew) and one by the ear (to protect the face). Sato stood outside the ring, and put up one of his hands.

Sato looked at both students, and then, seeing them both ready, let his hand fall, "Begin!"

Immediately Naruto came to a sudden realization that equally excited and worried him. These kids moved fast . Faster than he could, at any rate. They crossed that thirty foot gap faster than he could blink.

The long haired boy, Kogeru, seemed to be on the offensive. He sent fist after fist at Bao, but each punch found itself gently redirected past Bao. A tap here and a tap there, and none of the punches found their mark.

After one particularly near miss, Kogeru pulled up his leg to kick the boy with spiky hair. Naruto saw it for what it was: a distraction. Kogeru wanted Bao to duck, or move to block prematurely, or react in some way.

Bao saw it for what it wasn't: a kick. He moved to duck a kick that hadn't come yet, and ate an elbow to the back of his head for the trouble.

Bao fell on his hands, disoriented. Kogeru moved to follow up on the advantage, trying to plant a knee in his nose before Bao could get his arms back up.

Bao tucked his far arm under his body and rolled onto it. Kogeru hadn't accounted for the possibility that his knee may not land and stumbled forward, having put all his weight behind the strike.

Bao drove his far elbow into the ground to push himself up, readying a fist. Naruto saw the uppercut coming before Kogeru did, but god if the speed didn't surprise the both of them. If Naruto had to describe the punch in one word, he would use 'explosive.' One second, Bao was on the ground with Kogeru above him, off balance. The next, Kogeru felt a fist driving itself through his chin.

Kogeru fell backward on the ground, bleeding from a cut on his chin from the strike. Bao outstretched his arm to help him up. Kogeru didn't take it, and got up on his own.

Sato looked evenly at the two boys, "Good. Definite improvement from last week. Talk to Ito-Sensei once you feel up to it. He has notes."

Sato called out two other names, and two new people stepped into the ring.

Naruto watched, and watched. His attention undivided for nearly twenty minutes. Each match impressed him as much as the last. The blistering speed never seemed less otherworldly. He tore his gaze off the current match (two girls, not quite as fast as the last pairing), and moved to talk to Bao.

"Hey, why'd you stop?"

Bao turned to Naruto, away from his conversation with Kogeru about the spar, "What do you mean?"

"When you knocked him down, you didn't try to hit him any more. When Kogeru knocked you down, he tried to knee you in the face. What's up with that?"

"Oh, we go to first blood," explained Bao, "It'd be kind of messed up if we just pummel each other, right?"

Naruto didn't see it that way, but Kogeru nodded his head in agreement, so Naruto thought it prudent not to voice his opinion on this subject, "And you know how you missed that kick feint right?"

"Yeah, yeah," started Bao, "I know I fell for the feint, it happens, I should've known."

Kogeru laughed, "I get you with it every time, Bao," his voice scratched like he never learned how to drink water, "It's my go-to, you have to learn."

"But you know how to see it right?" asked Naruto, "Like you know that until he turns the leg that he's planting, he can't kick you in the head right?"

Bao looked at Naruto, Naruto was beginning to think he always looked confused. "No? What are you talking about?"

"Look," Naruto raised his left leg as Kogeru had during the fight, directly perpendicular with the ground, "From here, I could do this…" he unbent his knee, snapping the leg up as if to kick someone in the chest, "But you knew he wasn't going to front kick, that's why you ducked."

Bao nodded, "I didn't want to get kicked in the head."

"Right," Naruto unbent the leg back to the original position, "You were scared of him doing this…" Naruto rotated his planted leg and leaned backward, making his leg closer to horizontal with the ground than vertical as if to strike at an imaginary opponent's temple, and kicked the air, "You were afraid of him coming around the side."

"Yeah. I didn't want it to get past my arm."

"But did you see it?" Naruto unbent his leg once more, "Look at my back leg, he can't kick you 'till he rotates his back leg," Naruto demonstrated the move again, slower, rotating his planted leg to show the path of the strike.

Bao's eyes widened slightly, with a glimmer of understanding behind them, "I never noticed that. Who taught you that?"

Naruto smiled. This was the first person he had ever talked to that seemed interested in the idiosyncrasies of kicks, even though he told just about everyone he'd ever talked to about similar topics, "I learned it on my own."

"Still, who's your trainer? They must be really good. Even the Kyoda trainers don't talk about stuff like that."

"The Kyoda trainers?"

Kogeru raised an eyebrow, "His family trainers. You know, Kyoda? The clan?"

Naruto had never heard of the Kyoda in his life, but with both Bao and Kogeru looking confused, he felt as though he ought to pretend, "Oh yeah. The Kyoda. Of course."

Bao laughed, "Whatever man, thanks for the tip though. I'll make sure not to fall for that kind of stuff anymore."

"Yeah, there's tons of other little stuff too, like you got lucky with that knee, if Kogeru had decided to–"

Sato called Naruto's name, interrupting the thought. A sudden excitement coursed through Naruto's veins.

Sato yelled out the other name, "Kurotsuchi!"

The name caused Bao and Kogeru to look nervously at each other. Naruto didn't pay it any mind.

He stepped into the ring. So did the other student. A girl.

Naruto never understood all the mess everyone made about punching girls. He did it all the time, and it really didn't feel any different from punching boys. Somebody long ago had decided that punching someone who you could beat up was better as long as it was a boy. Naruto knew the judgement wasn't based on strength, because he never got in as much trouble beating up the weak boy kids. It was one of those things that never made any sense, like the rules about putting elbows on the table during dinner, or the rules about not stealing from vendors even though they didn't pay for security.

Sato put up his hand. Kurotsuchi bowed to him. She had black hair and black eyes, and long muscular legs for her body. Long legs meant kicks.

Naruto looked at Sato, who looked back at him.

'Oh right, the bow,' thought Naruto, hastily performing it, before assuming a basic stance. One hand low, one hand all the way outstretched. Good for catching kicks.

The hand began to fall. "Begin!"

Naruto knew that these people were fast, but he still was not prepared for the speed that Kurotsuchi immediately displayed. She crossed the distance between them before Sato's hand had fallen all the way. She threw a punch aimed at his temple. Naruto would have appreciated the form (with a few reservations of course, her wind up led quite a bit to be desired with its predictability) but he had no time. He barely managed to duck it, and brought his hands up.

He'd been wrong, she wasn't a kicker, he could tell now. She hadn't even thought of kicking him.

She threw another punch before Naruto could do anything about it. Naruto pulled up his right arm to absorb the blow.

As he felt the strike make contact with his forearm, he immediately knew it was the hardest he had ever been hit in his short life. Before he could properly reckon with that fact, she threw another one with her right hand.

Naruto could tell that Kurotsuchi was right handed, because the second hit stung worse than the first.

Naruto threw a retaliatory jab, but caught air as Kurotsuchi leaned backward and allowed the fist to fly over her body.

Up until this point, Naruto had never felt like a fight could be unfair. Sure, he'd fought a bigger kid, he'd even fought teenagers, but it still all came down to who made the right choices. This wasn't like that. This wasn't like fighting a human being.

Kurotsuchi kept up the pressure, throwing punch after punch, and Naruto felt his forearms bruise with each one.

He found a small victory in his opponents eyes: Kurotsuchi seemed to be getting frustrated. So frustrated that the power of her punches increased, along with the recovery time between each.

During one such power punch (a right hook), Naruto ducked the hand and landed a left on Kurotsuchi's face. She rolled with the punch and threw a left before Naruto could follow up on the weakness. Naruto didn't mind. He landed the first real hit.

Now Kurotsuchi looked properly ticked off. She threw one more left hand, and then brought up her leg for a head kick.

Naruto looked at her back leg. She hadn't rotated it. He looked at her right hand. She had squeezed it into a fist. He sidestepped the straight right punch before it broke his nose. He grabbed the outstretched hand and pulled as hard as he could. With the girl off balance from the attempted feint, she stumbled forward. Naruto outstretched his leg and Kurotsuchi graciously tripped over it.

She fell to the ground, and moved to get up, but before she could, Naruto stomped on the back of her head. She tried to roll over, and Naruto stomped on her head again. She bled now, from the mouth (her teeth must have cut the inside of her lip open). He raised his foot to stomp down again, but caught Sato's look of confusion.

And then he looked back at the rest of the crowd of students, and they all looked confused too.

And then he looked at Kurotsuchi, and she had a hand outstretched, as if she wanted his assistance getting back to her feet. She frowned, and her lips looked red from the blood.

Naruto put his foot down gently, and outstretched his arm, and almost fell over when assaulted with the strength of Kurotsuchi pulling him down.

"You got lucky," she whispered into his ear as he pulled her up.

That confused Naruto, because he hadn't thought that he'd gotten lucky, she hadn't flipped a coin and decided to perform an obvious kick feint. Perhaps Kurotsuchi knew something he didn't. He followed her out of the ring as Sato announced a brief recess before they moved back inside.

"Kurotsuchi, are you sure I got lucky?" Naruto started, ignoring Kurotsuchi's incredulous look, "I thought you got impatient because I shelled up, and then you tried that head kick feint because you saw it work for Kogeru. That didn't seem unlucky to me. Are you thinking of something else?"

Kurotsuchi scowled at him and growled in frustration, "Just get away from me."

She walked off to talk to Ito. Naruto stared off after her, and considered that this wouldn't be a problem if he had been allowed to continue after first blood. When he changed someone's face, they didn't say he got lucky. If he'd gotten one or two more stomps in, she'd be unconscious, and her nose would be broken, and she wouldn't be saying much of anything. 'Far more fair,' thought Naruto, 'Than her getting to think she should've won.'

Naruto felt a slap on his back. He snapped his head around as fast as he could. The offending hand connected to Bao, who wore a long smile.

"That was crazy. Kurotsuchi never loses those!"

Kogeru stood behind Bao, "Hey, I beat her once."

"You beat her a year ago . And then she went through that taijutsu training phase to never lose to you again. And she hasn't," Bao let out a chuckle, "Naruto, did you move slow like that to make her frustrated on purpose?"

"No."

"Whatever. Man, you're really good at taijutsu. Is that why they moved you up from Class B?"

"What's Class B?"

Bao opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He turned to Kogeru. Kogeru looked at Naruto, "Where did you come from then?"

"A domestic corps picked me up and dropped me off here and now I'm in your class."

Kogeru turned that over in his head for a second, "You're a delinquent?" he paused, thoughtfully, before smiling wide and shouting as loud as his scratchy voice would let him, "Hey, Kurotsuchi? Did you hear that? You got stomped by a delinquent!"

Naruto looked in the direction Kogeru shouted, and through the sea of people, he saw one furious Kurotsuchi. She looked mad. And a little teary eyed. Shame? Naruto had never been good at reading people's emotions outside of fights.

Bao looked weirdly at Kogeru, "Man what are you doing? She can kick your ass."

Kogeru shrugged, "I take my wins where I can get them."

"How did you win?" Naruto asked.

Kogeru shrugged again, "I'm not thinking that hard about it. You shouldn't think too hard about it either."

A good enough answer for Naruto, though he'd be lying if he said that he didn't want to see Kurotsuchi shut Kogeru up in that ring. What could be more shameful than talking like that without putting a piece of your body on the line?

Whatever. Naruto had gotten into a fight. At school. And the teachers were okay with it! This was great. Naruto had no idea what the headmistress decided to cry for.

After taijutsu came ninjutsu.

The moment Naruto had been taken aside and shown how to handle his chakra, he immediately understood how the other students managed to move so fast. He immediately knew as well that had Kurotsuchi succeeded at being even slightly more patient he could not have hoped to do anything to her. The moment he felt the chakra flood into his arms and legs, he knew that in a slugging match against someone with this , he had no right to win.

Chakra felt good too. It felt like how the world ought to work. Not only did Naruto like how it soothed the muscles as it ran over them, he also liked the freedom that came with the understanding. While the instructors could tell him how to use chakra, how to loosen the tenketsu, or how to wind them tighter, they could not do it for him.

When Naruto discovered how to obey their directions, they couldn't make him stop either. No person could take this understanding or ability away from him.

That's why he loved fighting too. Other people liked drawing or whatever garbage, but someone like him could kick their teeth in and tell them to stop drawing and they had no choice. If they kept drawing he could break their hand. The only person who really gets to do what they want is the one who fights best.

And for the first time, Naruto had found a second love that seemed almost to match that one. A second ideal that couldn't be told how to live: The person who lived in his chakra.

The instructors couldn't tell if he was doing the right thing or the wrong thing, and they couldn't stop him one way or the other. Only Naruto could feel the sensation going on within his body. This wonderful new blood that Ito and Sato had introduced to him now accompanied him with each step he took, an intimate and permanent partner.

This must be what his peers felt when they spoke of their parents. He never understood it before, how some other person could be so defining to the self. He thought he'd never understand, because he never had a dad. His surname, Michi, stood as testament to the fact that no one had ever cared about him sufficiently, at least in a genetic kind of way, to give him a proper upbringing. Michi was the surname of all the parentless children in Iwagakure so there could be no unique familial sensation that Naruto imagined his fellow student might feel with their last names.

But having a parent must feel like this. Having an entity that might as well be a part of you that you can trust to be on your team. For the first time in his life, Naruto no longer felt like he wished he knew who his dad was. Feeling the speed and strength that he let loose into his body, a dad felt small.

Chakra could be his dad for all he cared.

The final activity of the day was held in its own little room off the side of the academy. The instructors let the children filter themselves through the door one by one, and on the other side of the door stood a stone table, and on top of that stone table sat a metal bowl with boiling water resting on top of a small gas stove. A medic of some variety (their clothes made it easy to tell) stood off to the side holding a bucket full of chocolate bars.

Sato ferried the class in front of the table, "Alright, you guys know the deal. Today it's ten seconds, both hands."

Then, he called one of the students to the front who walked in front of the table, stuck both of his hands into the boiling water and began to scream.

Naruto widened his eyes at the display. He looked around to see if anyone would help. The other kids looked bored more than anything. He looked to Sato. He was counting.

The kid stood there and screamed himself coarse for ten seconds. He screamed so loud that Naruto thought his ears might bleed. The moment Sato counted to ten, the student pulled his blistered red hands from the boiling water and thrust them at the medic, who grabbed the boy by his injured hands and produced a green glow which faded just a few seconds later revealing the burns to be completely gone. She told him he had done a wonderful job, and was sure to be a determined ninja. The medic then plucked a chocolate bar from her bucket and handed it to the child.

"Alright, when you're done you can go home," spoke Sato, replacing the bloody water in the bowl with fresh, clear water, "And make sure to have a good weekend."

The boy walked to the door and out of the class, and someone walked up to take his place by the bowl of water, and stuck their hands in just as assuredly, and began to scream just as loudly.

Naruto endured the horrific scene for almost twenty minutes. Boiling water, horrific screams, healing, praise, chocolate bar. Boiling water, horrific screams, healing, praise, chocolate bar. Until the only one left was him.

He walked slowly up to the boiling water. He prepared to thrust his hands in and thought better of it.

"Sato-Sensei, why do I have to do this?"

"Well, do you want a chocolate bar?"

"I don't want to scream like they did."

Sato rolled his eyes, "Kid, I get that you're new, but you're going to have to get used to this. We do conditioning like this daily. You have to learn that pain isn't anything. If you want something, you can't let something as small as burning your hands get in your way."

Naruto looked back at the bucket, "I think I want the chocolate bar less than I don't want to burn my hands."

"Then you'll never be a good shinobi. That's called cowardice. It demonstrates no Will of Stone," Sato sighed, "You need to learn this now. Pain is nothing to a shinobi. If you want to be one, you have to prove it."

Naruto just stared at the bowl of boiling water.

Sato gestured to the door, "You can also leave with no chocolate bar. And I will never teach you anything else of worth because if you cannot overcome a little bit of pain for the things that you want to have, you aren't worth teaching. You'd be a worthless slug, and I'd have no reason to help you."

Naruto took a deep breath and thrust his hands into the water.

The breath immediately forced itself out of his lungs as a screech tore through his lungs. The water burned worse than he imagined. His hands screamed to be taken out, but Naruto did not move them.

He could still hear the sound of the bubbling water over his high pitched shrieks of pain. And he could hear another sound too.

"One," counted Sato.

Naruto tried to think of chakra, and of fighting, and all the wonderful things he would do here. And then he watched a blister form and then immediately pop on his left hand, and he listened to the sizzling sound that indicated the melting of his flesh. He closed his eyes and grit his teeth.

"Two."

Naruto thought of his chakra. He felt the coils that the instructors had told him about. He unwound the tenketsu in his shoulders. He felt the skin on his hands being eaten away into nothing by the relentless heat of the water.

"Three."

He unwound the tenketsu on his elbow, and then on his wrist. Naruto felt the chakra pour into his hands. The pain eased immediately, but not by much. He could feel the skin grow looser and baggy under the bones of his fingers.

"Four."

Naruto opened his eyes again. The white flesh on his hands had disappeared. All the skin that hadn't burned off had been scorched red, and a large portion of that began to slough off, in the same way the skin peels off of chicken legs. The contents of the bowl began to look more like translucent tomato soup with extra chunks of meat than water.

"Five."

Naruto still screamed, but he couldn't hear himself anymore, he pulled his hands into fists to try to ignore the burning, but the flesh rubbed on flesh and sent jolts of pain up his arms. He tried to stick his hands together, but that fared even worse.

"Six."

Naruto felt his fingernails begin to loosen. The water so severely melted the fingertips underneath them that nothing stood to hold them in their place. They began to slowly slide off and float to the top of the boiling water.

"Seven,"

Naruto lost control of his hands. They began to contract on their own, closing again into tight grips. He felt his fingers try to impale his palm, nail-less and baggy-skinned though they were. He felt the raw meat grind into itself, and felt every involuntary push. He'd had cramps before. He'd never had a cramp like this .

"Eight,"

Two more seconds. Naruto could hold for two more seconds. He still screamed, but no sound came out. One of his hands touched the side of the bowl. A costly mistake. The bowl burned hotter than the water, and melted the skin, sticking it to the metal.

"Nine,"

One more second. Naruto unstuck his hand from the side of the bowl with a pull. The skin stayed stuck, but the hand came off. The water ate fervently at the newly exposed wound. Naruto had assumed that the longer he had kept his hands in the bowl, the less it would hurt. That the nerves would burn off or something like he'd heard the other kids say. He'd assumed wrong. In the ninth second, his hands burnt just as badly as they'd burnt in the first.

"Ten," announced Sato.

Naruto pulled his arms from the burning water, and the cold of the air stung just as badly as the heat from the bowl. The medic grabbed his hands with both of hers, and for a moment it felt like she was crushing them, but just as quickly as that sensation came, it went and with it went the entire burning sensation.

Naruto gasped in relief as he felt the horrible pain of skinless fingers touching each other disappear. The medic let go of his hands, "Good as new! With nerves like that, you'll make a wonderful shinobi!"

She picked a chocolate bar, and handed it to Naruto, who took it slowly, hand shaking.

Naruto moved to walk out the door. Sato stopped him.

"Good job, Naruto. Not many new kids can handle that. You're really cut out for this. Be here Monday at eight am. That's when the school day starts. Got it?" Sato smiled.

Naruto nodded his head, analyzing Sato's expression. Naruto looked back to the bowl of water. It still had a tint of bright, translucent red, and he could still see his fingernails floating on the top.

"Don't worry, I'll be here."

Sato stepped aside, and Naruto walked out the door.

He unwrapped his chocolate bar and took a bite. The bowl nothing more than a memory.

It was the sweetest chocolate bar he ever had.