The desert wind never truly stopped in Sunagakure. It scraped the academy walls until stone sounded brittle under its touch. The building itself was utilitarian: mudbrick corridors bleached pale and cracked by the relentless sun; windows draped in coarse, sand-stained cloth to keep the grit out. It smelled of dust, oil, and sweat - the scent of hundreds of hopefuls training in dry heat, day after day.
Isan and the other trainees worked every day to get better. And while Isan's consistent improvement stood out, it was not nearly enough. Temari, for example, already carried a name inside the Academy. She spoke with the authority of someone older, and her skill made the boys flinch when she corrected them.
"Hit harder, aim faster!", she barked at the boy beside her during throwing drills.
Isan started waking up before sunrise. Practiced until his fingers bled. Mended his sandals with strands pilfered from a mop, sewn by shaky hands in moonlight.
One morning, muscles sore and limbs battered, he nearly remained in bed.
The persistent ache that resided within his bones softly whispered to him, urging him to take just one morning off for himself.
But he made himself get up, he needed to train, to fight or at least hold his own against ninjas and creatures that could level mountains and oceans. The longer he waited, the worse it might become.
When he walked out into the morning chill, he was greeted by a voice.
"You're always alone.", a girl was leaning against the doorway - short black hair, bandaged knuckles, a new black eye bruising her cheek. Daiana.
"Why? You think you're better than us?"
Isan looked at her, unfazed. "I never said I was."
"Then stop looking like a ghost,", she said, "and train and eat with us."
For a second, he thought about it. Then he pivoted, did not say anything, and ran into the sunrise.
To most, training before the sun rose was foolish. Useless. It only made the hunger sharper and the exhaustion heavier.
But for Isan, those moments alone were sacred. He could use that time to sort his thoughts and information of this world, at the same time, he could train to push his chakra control, refine what the Academy wouldn't teach. Each drop of sweat bought inches of improvement.
That talk with Daiana wasn't the first, nor the last. She returned the next day, and the next, and the next.
They didn't talk much. At first she began to follow him around, observe him. After some time, she started training beside him, he didn't mind, she wasn't unpleasant or annoying.
By the year's end, Daiana was able to keep up with him. Almost.
The last spar of the year took place beneath a white-hot sky.
The training yard baked in silence, filled with rows of students. The stone floor shimmered. The air stank of blood, sweat, and scorched dust.
Isan's name was called.
And then hers.
Temari moved forward with all the confidence of an experienced Genin. Her hair was tied into four angular pigtails, her eyes narrowed in amusement, sharp as if measuring prey.
She grinned as they bowed.
"This'll be quick."
"Begin!", shouted the instructor.
Temari didn't hesitate.
She exploded forward.
Isan deflected her initial blow, dodged a second, and then threw a return kick at her ribs, quick and pointed. She spun in mid-air and drove her elbow into the back of his skull. His eyes flashed white.
He stumbled. She didn't let up.
A flurry of punches rained in, sand puffing with every strike. She was smaller than some of the boys in class, but her hits came with the weight of practiced fury and perfect balance. She moved like she had been taught by a Jōnin for a long time.
Isan took a blow to the cheek, spun, and drove his heel low into her thigh. She gasped, just for a second, but he didn't follow through fast enough.
She kneed him in the gut and grabbed his collar.
"You're too soft,", she hissed. "Out here, softness gets you buried."
She headbutted him, hard.
Pain burst in his nose. Blood sprayed the ground. He fell to one knee, blinking through tears of pain.
She stepped back a little, breathing harder now, her posture defensive.
"Get up."
He had a feeling of dizziness, and his vision was very blurred, but even in that dizzying condition, he was able to distinctly hear the unmistakable voice of Daiana piercing the loud crowd that was around him.
"Come on, Isan!"
He rose.
Not driven by a sense of pride, nor for the crowd's approval, and, certainly, not for Daiana's sake.
For he knew that he had to get accustomed to this type of pain, much worse was sure to come in the future and he would have to continue to fight.
Isan launched forward, fury tempered by calculation. He feinted right, spun into a low strike, and clipped Temari's shin. She grunted but recovered instantly. Their fists clashed again, knuckles raw.
And then Temari shifted her footwork, just slightly. She was setting him up.
He realized it too late.
She swept him off his feet, twisted in the air, and delivered a hammering palm straight to his sternum.
Isan crashed to the ground, the breath torn from his lungs.
He tried to rise, but this time he couldn't.
"Match over!", the instructor called.
Temari stood over him, panting.
Then, surprisingly, she offered her hand.
"Next time,", she said, voice lower, no longer mocking. "Don't hesitate. You had an opening."
He took her hand.
Her grip was calloused, firm and respectful.
As he limped back to the line, blood drying in a copper crust on his lip, Isan's heart still thundered in his chest. It wasn't from fear or pain, but from something deeper. A raw and burning hunger.
He had lost, but there was no sadness in it, not even disappointment. Only the thrum of his heart and the hunger it left behind.
There was not an ounce of shame in being defeated by someone as strong and skilled as Temari.
She was the daughter of a Kazekage, a position that held a meaning that extended far beyond parentage and lineage. That title came with a multitude of expectations, a massive weight of pressure, and a strict training program designed not with the goal of raising a child, but with the aim of creating a powerful weapon.
Though she was famous for the large fan, that she would later master, and for her wind-style jutsus that could and would devastate forests. Even now, she was quick, accurate, and merciless. Her taijutsu, which was usually underestimated, was polished and violent, trained into her years before most kids knew how to properly hold a kunai. Her mind and strategic thinking were another skill of hers highly respected.
Isan had just seen it in the battle that had occurred seconds before. What he had seen was not simply a product of instinctual reflexes. It was, rather, a product of upper-level training and elite tutelage.
And yet…
He made her bleed.