I stood at the edge of the ring, my arms wrapped loosely around my torso, fighting the urge to press against my wounded rib.
I had exposed myself.
I kept my eyes downcast, playing the role of the embarrassed, lucky orphan, but my peripheral vision was locked on Daiki.
He doesn't know what he saw, I rationalized, forcing my heart to calm down. What I did contradicts every piece of data he has on me.He suspects a fluke, an accident. But I think that he isn't entirely sure yet.
He would test me.
I had to be ready.
When the final bell rang, dismissing us, the tension in the courtyard broke and the children fragmented into their cliques.
"Dude, what was that?"
Ken grabbed his backpack, falling into step beside me as we navigated the crowded corridor toward the main exit.
"What was what?" I asked, keeping my voice pitched higher.
"With Ryo!" Ken exclaimed, gesturing wildly with his hands. "He swung at you, and then you just… you ducked, and he went flying! I didn't even see how you tripped him!"
"I didn't trip him" I lied, letting out a sigh. "My knee gave out. Remember the iron weights you gave for my project? I carried them all morning, and my legs were like jelly. When Ryo punched me, I tried to step back, but my ankle just collapsed. I fell forward and my foot got tangled in his."
I looked at Ken, making an expression of frustration. "I just got lucky he was off-balance. If he hadn't fallen over me, he would have knocked me out."
Ken blinked, processing what I said.
"Oh" Ken exhaled, his awe turning into understanding. "Man, you gotta be careful with that iron stuff. But hey, a win is a win, right? Ryo looked so mad. It was hilarious."
"Yeah. Hilarious." I muttered, rubbing my chest.
"Hey, don't forget the math study guide for tomorrow" Ken added, waving as he turned down the street leading to his house. "I'll bring the first batch of iron plates tomorrow!"
"I won't forget." I said as I watched him disappear into the crowd.
The walk back to my apartment after the Academy dismissal was excruciating. My cracked rib pulsed with a sickening throb every time my right foot struck the paving stones.
I unlocked my apartment door, slipped inside, and leaned my back against the wall, exhaling a ragged breath.
I had to pivot. The camouflage of the incompetent civilian orphan was dead. Daiki would instantly know I was suppressing myself. The discrepancy would practically scream that I was suspicious.
I needed a new mask. A narrative that fit my character and that a shinobi would accept without looking deeper.
What is a war orphan?
A war orphan is a traumatized byproduct of a war. They are desperate, and forced to fight for scraps. If an orphan had explosive capacity when threatened, it wouldn't necessarily mark them as a genius. It would just make them a cornered animal. A street rat.
I decided.
That was my new persona. I wouldn't be incompetent. I would be unrefined. It was a profile that fit my demographic, and it would satisfy Daiki's suspicions by putting me into the category of scrappy survivor rather than anything else.
The next morning, I was tested.
I took my seat in Class 1-A.
Later, Ken dropped in the seat beside me.
"G'morning" he said with a yawn.
He reached down his bag and pulled a heavy sack, sliding it across the floorboards.
"The first ten pounds" Ken whispered. "I'll get the last ten on Friday. My uncle didn't even notice the scrap pile was lighter."
"Thanks. Read the notes on chakra disruption I gave you. Daiki is going to quiz us on it today" I replied, nudging the heavy sack under my chair.
The theoretical classes went normally. When the afternoon rolled around, Daiki marched us out to the training grounds for Taijutsu spars.
The atmosphere had shifted. When Daiki called the pairs, the civilian children looked at me differently. Ryo glared at me from across the circle, his pride bruised.
"Raijin against Kenji" Daiki called out.
I stepped into the ring. Kenji was another civilian, taller than Ryo and slightly more disciplined. I formed the Seal of Confrontation.
"Begin" Daiki ordered.
Kenji stepped forward, throwing a standard, straight jab. I didn't dodge it. I deliberately kept my feet planted slightly too wide, raising my forearms to absorb the blow. The strike connected, sending a jolt of pain through my chest.
I gritted my teeth and retaliated. I threw a wide hook, putting my shoulder into it. It was sloppy, and easy to block. Kenji caught it on his forearm, but I didn't stop.
I stepped into his guard, grabbing his collar, and used my weight, added with the thirty pounds strapped to my limbs, to simply bulldoze him backward.
We tangled. I let him land a glancing blow on my cheek before I hooked my leg behind his knee and shoved him to the dirt, falling with him in a messy grapple. I scrambled to the top position, pinning his shoulders down with force.
"Yield!" Kenji gasped, struggling against my weight.
"Winner, Raijin" Daiki announced.
I stood up, wiping the dirt from my face, panting. I looked at Daiki.
He watched me. His gaze swept over my wounds. He made a note on his clipboard. All he saw today was a desperate orphan who won by throwing his weight around.
The suspicion in his eyes dimmed.
I was safe.
I stepped back into the crowd. I caught a brief, fleeting glance from Itachi Uchiha across the circle.
He had watched my spar.
But Itachi said nothing. He didn't narrow his eyes or sneer. He simply looked away.
By Friday, Ken delivered the final ten pounds of iron scrap.
That night, I sat on the floor of my apartment, integrating the new metal plates into my straps. Fifty pounds total.
When I stood up with the upgraded weights, gravity pushed me down as it never did.
My legs shook.
But I welcomed the pain.
If I could adapt to fifty pounds of added weight, my physical energy reserves would expand.
However, expanding my chakra pool was only half the equation. I needed to refine the weapons I already had. The memory of Naibaku ripping through the boar, and the recoil that shook my wrist, was fresh in my mind.
I slipped out of my apartment window. I didn't enter the Forest of Death tonight. I needed an environment suited for experiments, not combat.
I returned to the rocky area where the river crashed violently.
I stood there, and unbuckled the fifty pounds of iron, letting them drop into the dirt.
I approached a massive boulder.
Naibaku had a flaw. The explosive force of the pressurized chakra expanding inside a target created an equal and opposite shockwave. Because my palm was pressed flat against the target, the shockwave traveled back through my open tenketsu.
If I couldn't seal my tenketsu fast enough to block the recoil, I had to give it somewhere else to go. I had to turn my body into a lightning rod.
I pressed my right palm flat against the surface of the boulder.
I closed my eyes, regulating my breathing. I drew the dense pool of chakra from my core, engaging my energy. I routed the vortex up my arm and localized it in my palm.
If I could take the impact entering my wrist, route the shockwave up my forearm, down my spine and expel it out through the tenketsu in the soles of my feet, the earth would absorb the recoil.
Pierce. Compress. Expand.
I injected the spinning chakra into the fissures of the boulder. I held the pressure, letting it build to critical mass.
At the exact second I severed my control, I locked every muscle in my legs and opened the tenketsu on the soles of my feet, mentally visualizing a downward channel.
The Naibaku detonated.
The boom echoed over the roar of the water. The internal pressure shattered the structural integrity of the boulder. A massive crack spread across its material, and the front half of the rock violently sheared off, collapsing.
The recoil hit my palm.
But this time, I didn't fight the impact. I let the shockwave enter my wrist. As the vibration traveled up my arm, I forcefully guided it.
Down the shoulder. Down the spine. Out the feet.
It felt like a bolt of electricity ripping through my body.
The floor beneath me exploded.
A localized crater, two feet wide, ruptured in the earth, directly beneath my soles.
I stumbled backward, falling onto the grass, gasping for breath.
My right arm throbbed. The pathways were still slightly shaken, but not numb. I had grounded the majority of the recoil. It wasn't perfect, but it did not hurt like hell, using it multiple times would still leave me aching, but it was no longer a suicidal technique.
I lay on the grass, thinking.
Now, I had a functioning C-rank equivalent assassination strike that required zero hand seals and made almost no visual light or sound until the moment of detonation.
It had its drawbacks, but it was usable.
I sat up, wiping the dirt from my face. I walked back to the straps, lifting the weights of iron. I strapped them back onto my ankles and wrists, embracing the torture.
I walked back toward my apartment, realizing I had one more thing up my arsenal against death in this world.