The Academy application process was, in Shingen's considered opinion, designed by someone who'd never met an ambitious five-year-old with the soul of a sociopath.
"And why do you want to become a shinobi, Yamazaki-kun?" The examiner, a chunin with a scar bisecting his left eyebrow, looked like he'd rather be literally anywhere else.
Shingen deployed Smile Configuration Seven—earnest enthusiasm with a hint of naïveté. "Because I want to protect the village and make my parents proud, sir! Plus, ninja are *so cool*. Did you know that the Second Hokage invented the Shadow Clone jutsu? I read about it in—"
"Yes, yes." The chunin made a note on his clipboard, already tuning out. Perfect. Adults heard what they expected to hear from children. Shingen had been using that to his advantage since he could form complete sentences.
The physical assessment was more problematic. Twenty other early applicants—all six years old, giving them a full year's advantage—gathered in the training yard. Most came from civilian families like his, though Shingen spotted two Inuzuka kids and what might have been a minor branch Hyuuga based on the pale eyes and superior sneer.
"Line up!" A jonin instructor—tall, angular, with the look of someone perpetually disappointed by humanity—surveyed them like a butcher considering meat. "I'm Gekko Norio. You'll be doing basic physical assessments. Run the course, hit the targets, demonstrate any chakra control you possess. Those who pass move to the next round. Those who don't can try again next year."
The course was straightforward: fifty-meter sprint, climbing wall, shuriken accuracy test, and finally, a demonstration of the Academy Three—or at least, the ability to mold chakra.
Shingen watched the first batch of kids attempt the course. Most fumbled. A few showed promise. The Hyuuga branch kid—Hyuuga Tokuma, based on the name called—completed it with irritating efficiency, his Byakugan already active and tracking every movement.
*Clan advantage*, Shingen thought venomously. *Born on third base, thinks he hit a triple.*
His turn came. Shingen stepped up to the starting line, aware of the eyes on him—the youngest applicant, small even for five, with that manic energy that made other parents instinctively pull their children away at the park.
"Ready… go!"
Shingen *moved*.
The fifty-meter sprint—he'd been preparing for this. Hours of practice in secret, using his Enhanced Perception to analyze his own biomechanics, optimize his stride. He wasn't *fast* by shinobi standards, but for a five-year-old? He crossed in eight-point-three seconds.
Respectable. Not remarkable.
The climbing wall was harder. His arms, still developing, screamed protest halfway up. But Shingen Yamazaki—Marcus Chen—had once held onto a building ledge for twenty minutes to avoid Triad enforcers. Pain was just information, and he was very good at ignoring information that didn't serve him.
He crested the wall, dropped, and moved to the shuriken range.
This was where things would get interesting.
Shingen had never thrown a shuriken in his previous life. But he'd spent three months of this life "playing" with kunai, analyzing angles, trajectory, weight distribution. His Intelligence stat wasn't just memory—it was processing power, the ability to calculate and adjust in real-time.
First throw: eight inches left of center.
Data acquired. Wind resistance, release point, wrist rotation all factored.
Second throw: three inches right of center.
Adjustment made.
Third throw: dead center.
Fourth and fifth: dead center.
Murmurs rippled through the watching applicants. Gekko Norio's eyes sharpened with interest—the first real attention Shingen had received.
*There we go. Hook set.*
The final test: chakra control. Shingen walked to the demonstration area, where a leaf and a bowl of water waited. The standard Academy tests—stick the leaf to your forehead with chakra, or make ripples in the water.
Boring. Pedestrian. *Expected*.
Shingen had other plans.
He pressed his palms together, feeling the chakra coil in his center—that strange energy that his previous body had never possessed. Five years of practice had given him control that most Academy students didn't achieve until their second year. The Puppeteer's Whisper technique had taught him precision; applying that to basic chakra manipulation had been trivially easy.
The leaf rose from the table without him touching it, suspended between his palms by the thinnest threads of chakra—a crude imitation of what he knew was possible, but far beyond what a five-year-old should manage.
Then, maintaining the leaf, he turned to the water bowl. Chakra rippled across its surface, forming concentric circles that spelled out, with painstaking precision:
**YAMAZAKI**
The training yard went silent.
Gekko Norio stepped forward, his expression unreadable. "Yamazaki. How long have you been training?"
"Since I was three, sir!" Shingen dropped the chakra, letting the leaf flutter down, and deployed Smile Configuration Twelve—proud but humble, eager for approval. "My uncle has a friend who's a retired genin. He showed me some basics. I've been practicing every day! Is… is it good enough, sir?"
The jonin studied him for a long moment, and Shingen saw the calculation happening behind those dark eyes. A five-year-old with this level of control was unusual but not unprecedented—civilian-born prodigies appeared occasionally. But combined with the physical performance and the *precision*…
"You pass," Norio said finally. "Report for the second assessment next week."
Shingen bowed—perfect forty-five-degree angle, just long enough to show respect without seeming obsequious. "Thank you, sir! I won't disappoint you!"
He turned to leave, making it three steps before a voice called out:
"Oi, midget."
Shingen stopped, turned slowly. Hyuuga Tokuma stood with three other kids—the two Inuzuka and a civilian boy who had the look of someone who'd spent his whole six years being told he was special.
*Ah. Here we go.*
"Yes?" Shingen kept his voice polite, curious, innocent. His amber eyes were wide and guileless.
"That was a cute trick with the leaf," Tokuma said, his Byakugan inactive but his tone dripping with condescension. "Very… showy. But in a real fight, flashy chakra control doesn't mean much. Maybe don't get too proud of yourself."
The other kids snickered. The chunin examiner had moved to the next applicant, conveniently out of earshot.
Shingen felt something warm and familiar unfurl in his chest—the same feeling he'd gotten when a business rival once tried to intimidate him at a corporate dinner. Right before Shingen had systematically destroyed the man's company and framed him for embezzlement.
He smiled. Not the innocent, childish smile he showed adults. This one was all teeth.
"You know what's funny about the Hyuuga clan?" Shingen said conversationally, taking a step closer. The other boys tensed. "You have the Byakugan, right? Three-hundred-sixty-degree vision, see through walls, view the chakra network. Incredible ability."
Tokuma's eyes narrowed. "What's your point?"
"My point is that with all that visual prowess, your clan still has a Main Family and a Branch Family. Which means some Hyuuga are born seeing *everything*, and they still end up as slaves." Shingen tilted his head, that manic grin splitting his face wider. "Kind of tragic, when you think about it. All that power, and you still have to bow to people who just happened to be born first. Must be *frustrating*."
The temperature in the training yard dropped ten degrees.
Tokuma's face went white, then red. "You little—"
"I mean, I'm just a nobody civilian kid," Shingen continued, voice bright and cheerful, as if discussing the weather. "No bloodline, no clan, no special eyes. But at least when I succeed, it'll be because I *earned* it, not because I was lucky enough to inherit fancy eyeballs from Daddy. That's gotta count for something, right?"
One of the Inuzuka kids grabbed Tokuma's arm as the Hyuuga lunged forward. "He's not worth it, man. He's just a little freak."
Shingen laughed—high and slightly unhinged, the kind of laugh that made people take an involuntary step back. "Freak! I like that. Better than being a trust fund baby playing at ninja."
He turned and walked away, whistling a tune from his previous life. Behind him, he heard Tokuma snarl something about "teaching him a lesson" and "after we make it in."
Perfect.
In his previous life, Marcus Chen had learned that the best way to control people wasn't to make them like you. It was to make them *obsessed* with you—with beating you, destroying you, proving you wrong. People obsessed with you made predictable choices. They overextended. They took risks.
And when they failed, when you crushed them despite their advantages, the psychological damage was *exquisite*.
Shingen Yamazaki had just made his first enemy at the Academy.
He couldn't wait to make more.
-----
**One Week Later: Second Assessment**
The second round culled twenty applicants down to eight. Shingen advanced easily—his chakra control remained the highest in the group, and his tactical assessments during the team exercises showed a grasp of strategy that made Gekko Norio take actual notes.
"You think three steps ahead," the jonin observed after Shingen had successfully orchestrated a mock mission where his team of six-year-olds captured a flag from a chunin instructor. "That's unusual for someone your age."
"I just like games, sir," Shingen said with Smile Configuration Four—shy pride. "Strategy games, shogi, anything with pieces and rules. My father says I'm too clever for my own good sometimes."
What he didn't mention: in his previous life, he'd run a three-year con that involved manipulating four different triads, two corporate boards, and a district attorney. Outmaneuvering Academy instructors testing *children* was child's play.
Literally.
The final assessment came two weeks later: a one-on-one spar against another applicant, monitored by jonin.
Shingen drew Hyuuga Tokuma.
*Of course he did.*
They faced each other in a training ring, surrounded by the other applicants and three jonin instructors. Tokuma's Byakugan was already active, veins bulging around his pale eyes, every fiber of his being radiating superiority.
"I'm going to enjoy this," Tokuma said quietly, settling into the Gentle Fist stance.
Shingen just grinned that manic grin. "You really shouldn't have told me that. Now I *know* you're overconfident."
"Hajime!" Gekko Norio's voice cracked like a whip.
Tokuma blurred forward—faster than Shingen, trained since birth in taijutsu, the Gentle Fist style designed to cripple with a touch.
Shingen didn't try to match him.
Instead, he dove to the side, rolling through dirt, and came up throwing—not shuriken, but a handful of sand directly into Tokuma's face.
The Hyuuga's Byakugan let him see it coming, but his body was already committed to the lunge. Sand scattered across his eyes, more annoyance than injury, but it bought Shingen two seconds.
Two seconds was enough.
Shingen's hands moved through signs—sloppy, unpracticed, but functional. He'd bought this jutsu last week from the Gacha system, spending his remaining 847 GP plus everything he'd earned from daily quests:
**[COMMON JUTSU: CLONE TECHNIQUE]**
Three Shingens materialized around the real one—basic illusions, no substance, but convincing enough to split Tokuma's attention.
The Hyuuga snarled, his Byakugan tracking the real Shingen easily through the clones' lack of chakra network. He pivoted, driving a Gentle Fist palm strike toward Shingen's center mass—
—and hit empty air as Shingen dropped flat, letting momentum carry Tokuma past him.
As the Hyuuga stumbled, Shingen lashed out with a leg sweep that was more luck than skill.
Tokuma went down.
Shingen pounced—no grace, no technique, just five-year-old desperation and the muscle memory of three previous bar fights in his previous life. He got Tokuma in a headlock, his small arms barely wrapping around the older boy's neck.
"Yield," Shingen hissed in his ear, "or I'm going to make you pass out in front of everyone. How's that going to look for the prestigious Hyuuga clan?"
For a moment, Tokuma thrashed, trying to break free. His Byakugan showed him exactly where Shingen's pressure points were, but he couldn't reach them from this angle.
Shingen squeezed harder, cutting off just enough blood flow to make his point without causing real damage. He'd learned this hold from a Brazilian bouncer in Macau who'd taught him how to subdue marks without killing them.
"Yield," he repeated, voice pleasant, conversational, "*Tokuma-kun*."
"I yield!" Tokuma gasped, slapping the ground.
Shingen released him immediately, rolling backward and popping to his feet with that manic grin plastered across his face. He spread his arms wide, addressing the stunned audience:
"See? No bloodline necessary! Just good old-fashioned *strategy*!"
The jonin instructors exchanged glances. Gekko Norio looked like he'd bitten into something sour.
Tokuma climbed to his feet, face crimson with humiliation and rage. "You… you *cheated*. Sand in the eyes? A headlock? That's not real shinobi combat!"
"Really?" Shingen's voice dripped with false innocence. "I thought shinobi were supposed to use any advantage to complete the mission. Did I misunderstand something, sir?" He turned to Norio with wide, questioning eyes.
The jonin's jaw tightened. "…No. You're correct. Yamazaki wins."
The training yard erupted in whispers. Shingen caught fragments:
"—did you see that?"
"—five years old and he beat a Hyuuga—"
"—insane, he's actually insane—"
Shingen walked past Tokuma, close enough to whisper: "Thanks for the match, *Tokuma-kun*. This was fun. We should do it again sometime. Maybe next time you'll actually remember that those fancy eyes mean nothing if you can't think three steps ahead."
He felt it then—the whisper of killing intent from the six-year-old Hyuuga, quickly suppressed but unmistakable. Delicious.
"Yamazaki." Gekko Norio's voice cut through the whispers. "Stay after. The rest of you are dismissed."
Shingen bowed to the instructor, still wearing that insufferable grin.
When the other applicants had filtered out—Tokuma shooting him a look that promised future violence—Norio approached with two other jonin: a woman with silver hair pulled into a severe bun, and a man whose fingers bore the calluses of a weapons specialist.
"That was reckless," Norio said flatly. "You barely have any combat training, and you picked a fight with a clan heir."
"I didn't pick the fight, sir. The brackets were random." Shingen deployed Smile Configuration Fifteen—respectful but unrepentant. "And I won, didn't I?"
"Through tricks and luck."
"Through tactics and exploiting my opponent's assumptions," Shingen corrected, then caught himself. "Sorry, sir. I shouldn't have interrupted. But… isn't that what ninja do? We exploit weaknesses, use deception, do whatever it takes to complete the mission?"
The silver-haired woman laughed—short and sharp. "He's got you there, Norio. The kid fights dirty. That's worth something."
"He's *five*," Norio said. "He should be learning fundamentals, not…" He gestured vaguely at Shingen. "Whatever *this* is."
"This is me being serious about becoming a shinobi, sir," Shingen said, letting a hint of steel enter his voice—just enough to show he wasn't entirely the manic child he presented. "I know I'm young. I know I'm small. I know I don't have a bloodline or a clan name. That means I have to be *better*. Smarter. More willing to do what others won't. If that makes me reckless…" He shrugged. "Then I'm reckless. But I'm effective."
The three jonin studied him in silence. Shingen met their gazes steadily, letting them see the calculating intelligence behind the manic exterior. This was a calculated risk—showing too much too soon could mark him as dangerous, but showing too little would waste the impact of his victory.
Finally, the weapons specialist spoke: "You pass. Report to the Academy in two weeks. Try not to make too many enemies before then."
"No promises, sir," Shingen said cheerfully.
As he left the training yard, he pulled up his system interface:
**[Significant Action Completed: Defeat Opponent From Superior Background]**
**[Reward: 500 GP]**
**[Achievement Unlocked: David vs. Goliath (First Time)]**
**[Reward: 200 GP]**
**[Achievement Unlocked: Make an Enemy Before Academy Enrollment]**
**[Reward: 100 GP]**
**[Total GP: 800]**
Shingen's grin widened. Eight hundred points. Not enough for another Epic pull, but enough for a Rare item—or save for three more weeks and try for another Epic.
But more importantly: he'd made a statement. The youngest Academy applicant in recent memory had just publicly humiliated a Hyuuga clan member.
People would remember that.
People would *talk* about that.
And when they did, they'd underestimate him—write him off as a lucky brat, a one-hit wonder, a civilian kid who got a single win through tricks.
They'd be wrong, but by the time they realized it, Shingen would be three steps ahead.
He whistled as he walked home, already planning his next move.
The Academy started in two weeks.
He couldn't wait to see what other lives he could ruin.