During their peak, each of the Five Great Ninja Villages boasted hundreds of Jonin, twenty to thirty thousand Chunin, and only a few thousand Genin. It might seem odd that Genin, the entry-level ninja, were so few, but it made sense: the number of graduates each year was limited, and most Genin would advance to Chunin within a few years.
Chunin were the backbone of any village. They performed the bulk of missions, upheld internal security, and supported infrastructure. Their missions brought in the lion's share of the village's income.
Akira, now the self-declared Sound Kage of the fledgling Sound Village, had grand ambitions. He wanted his village to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Five Great Ninja Villages—but he wasn't delusional. He understood that such recognition wasn't something he could attain in a matter of months. The Five Great Villages had decades of foundation, legacies carved in blood and chakra.
He had a year—just one—before the end of the Third Shinobi World War. That was the window.
If he could bolster the number of his ninjas, claim a meaningful share of the mission market before the war's conclusion, and bring in enough resources to fund his scientific research, that would be victory enough for now. Scale could come later. For now, Akira needed numbers, experience, and income.
Training methods varied widely across the ninja world. Konoha employed a six-year ninja academy, combining cultural education with chakra training. Suna treated their ninjas like soldiers, with an intense, accelerated regimen. And then there was Kirigakure—the most brutal of them all. Their philosophy was to let students slaughter each other in relentless competition, believing only those who survived were worthy of being ninja. Their methods were efficient but barbaric. Every ninja from the Mist carried the blood of their classmates on their hands.
Konoha's school could be condensed to a three-year crash course during wartime. Suna could churn out a functional ninja in two. Kirigakure's method was even faster—but at a dire cost.
Akira rejected the Mist's ideology outright. He didn't have the luxury of sacrificing recruits. The Sound Village had only a little over a thousand ninjas—not enough to waste. He wanted progress, not corpses.
Instead, he chose to hybridize Konoha's and Suna's approaches. He would build a ninja school for the long term, but would also train his people like an army. He had 2,000 samurai at his disposal—men and women hardened by years of martial training. Though not trained in ninjutsu, their combat power wasn't far from your average Genin.
With proper chakra control techniques and instruction in ninja tactics, Akira believed they could easily serve as frontline Genin.
As for the rogue ninjas he had recruited—most were adults, with decent chakra reserves and battlefield experience. The problem wasn't talent. It was technique. They had the chakra of Chunin, but the skills of civilians. They barely knew any proper ninjutsu.
Akira could change that.
He would build a ninja school. He would teach them the fundamentals. With the Sharingan he had awakened on the battlefield, he had copied dozens of jutsu across various elemental types. He also carried the combat experience of Sasori, a Kage-level opponent whose techniques still echoed in his mind.
The plan was simple: teach them the basic ninjutsu, build their skills from the ground up, and then assign them to real missions. Their combat experience, combined with proper training, would push them to Chunin-level quickly.
The Sound Village had been standing for a little over two months. Already, it was taking shape. The Sound Kage Office, the academy, the training grounds, and a sprawl of basic housing had been constructed.
Akira divided the 1,000 rogue ninjas into ten squads of 100. For now, he was the only instructor. His ten shadow clones served as teachers, each clone leading a class in the newly built, still-rough Sound Ninja School.
They began with the Three Body Technique—Transformation, Substitution, and Clone. In the major villages, mastery of these basic jutsu, combined with some shuriken and taijutsu knowledge, was enough for graduation.
Most of Akira's students had passable hand-to-hand and shuriken skills. What they lacked was technique.
Akira demonstrated the Three Body Techniques himself. With a flick of his fingers and smooth chakra control, he transformed into another person, swapped positions with a wooden stake, and created two perfect clones.
Gasps echoed through the training field.
Akira resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "What a bunch of country bumpkins," he muttered. "Getting worked up over this?"
Still, they were eager, and eagerness was better than defiance. They began attempting the jutsu themselves.
It was, predictably, a mess.
Transformations were off—one clone of Akira came out twice his height with noodle arms. Substitutions failed to trigger. Clone techniques produced blurry, barely humanoid blobs.
Akira buried his face in his hand. "These guys... they're barely better than Naruto on his first day at the academy."
For a moment, doubt flickered. Could he really turn this mess into a real ninja force in under a year?
But then he activated the Sharingan and began individual corrections. He identified flaws in chakra molding, seal speed, even posture. Patiently—relentlessly—he drilled the errors out of them. And slowly, something changed.
Transformations sharpened. Clones began to take form. Substitutions flickered into place.
They were learning.
He estimated that within a few more weeks, they'd have the basics down. Then he could introduce elemental jutsu, tactics, team formations.
The ninja side was making progress.
But the samurai... not so much.
Despite their martial discipline, chakra control was a foreign concept. Akira found himself repeating lessons over and over. Their stances were too rigid, their strikes too predictable. They fought like tanks—unmoving, powerful, but easily countered.
He would have to adjust. Perhaps introduce chakra flow exercises, weapon infusions, or controlled sparring sessions with ninjas to expose them to more versatile styles.
Still, Akira felt it. The pulse of something real. A rhythm beneath the chaos.
Sound Village was alive.
And soon, the world would hear its name.
Although the samurai of the Land of Rice Fields were all warriors trained in martial discipline, their martial skills were born from a tradition of sparring against fellow samurai. Their techniques, honed in countless duels and drills, were devastating against other swordsmen—but ultimately ineffective against the elusive and unorthodox tactics of shinobi.
Akira knew this all too well. His goal wasn't just to command an army of powerful warriors. He needed to forge a force capable of facing ninja head-on, to create a new kind of soldier—hybrid warriors who could wield the discipline and raw strength of samurai with the versatility and cunning of ninja.
Over the past two months, Akira had begun this arduous transformation. He personally taught the samurai the taijutsu and weapon techniques of legendary shinobi—moves he had seen and memorized with his Sharingan on the battlefield. The results were promising. Because taijutsu had evolved from ancient samurai martial arts, the samurai adapted quickly, even improving on the techniques with their raw strength and relentless discipline.
But taijutsu alone was not enough.
Shinobi, unlike samurai, worked in tightly coordinated squads. Each team member compensated for the weaknesses of another. A shinobi who specialized only in hand-to-hand combat was rarely alone—they had allies to cover their vulnerabilities. But Akira's samurai stood alone. There were no trained ninjutsu users to support them, no sensor-types or genjutsu specialists. For them to survive in this world, they needed more than swords and fists.
They needed ninjutsu.
Akira didn't expect mastery. He didn't need them to summon giant beasts or breathe fire across a battlefield. But they had to learn the basics—the Three Body Techniques: Transformation, Clone, and Body Replacement. At the very least, these simple yet essential skills could help them survive ambushes and escape life-threatening traps.
He started from the beginning. The samurai, through years of training, had unknowingly refined chakra. They just didn't know how to control or mold it. So Akira taught them—how to sense their chakra, how to circulate it, how to focus it into their limbs and weapons. Soon, many began coating their blades with chakra, not unlike the famed New Style samurai of the Land of Iron. Their swords gleamed with energy, their strikes heavier and sharper.
But when it came to hand seals, Akira hit an unexpected wall.
The art of forming hand seals, developed by Indra, the son of the Sage of Six Paths, was more than just a sequence of gestures. It was a bridge between body and mind. A way to tap into subconscious power and channel it through precise, almost ritualistic movement. Many shinobi had no real understanding of the theory—they had simply drilled the seals into muscle memory from childhood.
The samurai, however, were adults. Their thoughts rigid, their habits ingrained. They had never used chakra deliberately before, let alone tried to weave it into forms using abstract hand gestures. Despite Akira's careful instruction, their progress was painfully slow.
Two months passed. Of the two thousand samurai, only a handful could manage even one correct seal. The rest stumbled through the exercises like men grasping at air, their brows furrowed, their fingers stiff with frustration. Children in ninja villages learned their first seals in days. But these seasoned warriors—men who could split logs with a single stroke—were now brought to their knees by a few simple movements.
Akira had never realized how difficult it was for an adult to begin ninja training from scratch. He had never seen anyone in Konoha start learning hand seals in their twenties. Now, he understood why. These warriors, despite their spirit, were like trees trying to bend after growing straight for decades.
Many gave up.
Disheartened, they returned to what they knew—swordsmanship and brute strength. They refined their forms, swung their blades, and redoubled their martial drills. But a few—just a few—refused to surrender. They remained in the training grounds long after the others had left, fingers trembling as they repeatedly formed seals, struggling to catch that elusive feeling of control.
At the First Training Ground of the Sound Village, Akira watched them quietly. Among them, one figure stood out—a man he recognized: Kimura.
Kimura had always left an impression. His martial prowess was extraordinary, perhaps even rivaling a jonin. When Akira first met him, he assumed all the samurai were like this—razor-sharp, disciplined, terrifyingly efficient. But he quickly discovered Kimura was the exception. Most of the others were barely genin-level in comparison.
Yet here Kimura stood, brow furrowed in concentration, sweat streaking down his face, fingers clumsily repeating the same seal over and over again. The determination in his eyes burned like a torch in the night.
Akira approached him, his shadow stretching long over the dirt of the training ground.
"Not everyone is suited to ninjutsu," Akira said softly. "If you can't form a single seal after this long, perhaps it's time to focus on what you're good at."
Kimura looked up. His body straightened instantly as he recognized his leader. He bowed low.
"Lord Otokage. Thank you for your concern," Kimura said respectfully. "But I… I've seen the kind of power ninja possess. The things they can do—"
His voice faltered, then steadied.
"I once thought swordsmanship was everything. But I saw my comrades slaughtered by Cloud ninja as if our blades were twigs. I couldn't protect them. And now… now I keep dreaming of my remaining comrades being killed the same way, while I stand by helplessly."
He clenched his fists tightly, his voice quivering with restrained emotion.
"I hate this feeling of weakness. I hate that I can't do anything. Lord Otokage, even if I have no talent—there must be another way. There must be some path for me to gain power. I'll pay any price. Just… show me the way."
Akira looked at him long and hard.
He had seen this kind of desperation before—the same fire burned in the eyes of Might Guy, who had once been mocked as a failure, a shinobi with no ninjutsu talent, destined for mediocrity. Yet Guy had defied fate with sheer willpower, becoming one of the most powerful taijutsu users in history.
But Guy had a rare talent and the strength to risk his life for power. Not everyone had that spark. Kimura was strong, but he was still an ordinary man. Hardworking, determined—but ordinary.
And in this world… the ordinary were crushed beneath the heels of the exceptional.
But then, Akira's thoughts shifted. What if there was a way to tip the scales? What if he could give Kimura the power he so desperately sought—not by relying on talent, but by giving him a tool, a shortcut… a cheat?
Yes. That was it.
Akira's Sharingan glinted faintly as the idea took form.
Although these samurai couldn't master ninjutsu through normal means, he could give them something else. Something powerful. Something that could level the battlefield.
He would craft techniques, weapons, or enhancements tailored for their strengths. Tools to amplify their abilities and grant them ninja-like power—without requiring them to become ninja themselves.
He would give them a path of their own.
A path where even the powerless could fight gods.
He looked at Kimura, who still stood tall despite his failure, and said with a quiet but resolute voice:
"There may be another way, Kimura. If you're willing to endure the trials ahead, I'll forge you a new kind of power."
Kimura's eyes widened.
And in that moment, a flicker of hope returned to the heart of a man who refused to give up.
And Akira knew—the real transformation of the Sound Village had only just begun.