The first few years were a lesson in a new kind of torment, one far more intimate than the cold steel of a gurney. Silas, as his mind still insisted on calling itself, had anticipated powerlessness. He had not anticipated the sheer, grating incompetence of his new vessel. This body wasn't just an undeveloped prison; it was a poorly constructed one.
He was the infant who caught colds that lingered for weeks. While other babies began to develop a layer of healthy fat, he remained lean and frail, his skin pale. His connection to the machinery of his own limbs felt frayed, as if his mental commands had to travel down a faulty wire. He would will his hand to grasp a wooden block, and it would twitch, fingers spasming uselessly before obeying. The delay was infuriating, a constant reminder that he was not in control.
His world was the orphanage nursery, a landscape of muted colors and the constant background noise of crying. From this vantage point, he became a dedicated student of his environment, not out of curiosity, but out of necessity. His primary textbook was comparison. He watched other infants, months younger than him, achieve milestones with an ease that felt like a personal insult. A baby girl named Hana learned to roll over in a single, fluid motion. It took Akira the better part of a month, a series of clumsy, exhausting struggles that left his muscles aching and his mind simmering with a quiet rage.
The caregivers, once seeing him as the "serious baby," now looked upon him with a different sort of gaze: pity. He was the frail one, the late bloomer. They would often find him on his play mat, not playing, but simply staring at his own hands, a look of intense, unsettling concentration on his face as he tried to make his fingers clench and unclench in a smooth, controlled sequence.
Speech was another hurdle. His intellect absorbed the language around him effortlessly. He understood syntax, meaning, and tone. But when he tried to form the words himself, his tongue felt thick and clumsy, his vocal cords refusing to produce anything more than the standard babyish babbles. Words, his old tools of manipulation and deceit, were locked away.
His most constant and irritating subject of study was, as always, the blond-haired pariah, Naruto. While Akira struggled against the limitations of his own flesh, Naruto was a whirlwind of vitality. He was loud, yes, and emotionally transparent, but his body was robust. When he tumbled, he bounced back up with a cry of frustration, not pain. He learned to walk early, a clumsy but determined toddler's stagger, full of an energy that Akira deeply envied.
The village's animosity towards Naruto was a tangible thing. Yet, in a cruel irony, the boy seemed to thrive physically, as if feeding off the very attention he so desperately craved, negative or not.
By the age of three, Akira had finally managed to achieve a precarious, unsteady walk. It was a victory born of sheer, grinding repetition, but it felt hollow as he watched other children his age run and chase each other in the small orphanage yard. His own attempts at running were short, ungainly bursts that often ended with him tripping over his own feet.
One sweltering afternoon, he was sitting in the shade, methodically trying to stack wooden blocks with fingers that still felt foreign to him. Naruto, having been rebuffed by every other child in the yard, spotted him. With the boundless, foolish optimism only he seemed to possess, he toddled over, dragging a tattered kickball behind him.
"Aki-ra," he pronounced carefully, pointing a grubby finger at the blocks. "Play?"
Akira didn't look up. He focused on the block in his hand, trying to place it gently on the tower. His hand trembled, and the block clattered to the ground. A flash of fury, cold and sharp, went through him.
Naruto nudged the kickball against Akira's leg. "Ball?"
Akira finally lifted his head, his dark eyes meeting Naruto's bright, hopeful blue ones. He saw no malice, no guile. He saw only a boundless well of energy, a sturdy body, and a simple mind. Naruto was a living, breathing testament to everything Akira had lost, everything he was being punished for. The sight of him was an irritation, like sand in an eye.
He gave the kickball a weak, clumsy shove with his foot. It rolled a few inches away. Then, he turned his back, pointedly ignoring the blond child and resuming his task with the blocks. He didn't need to see the flicker of hurt on Naruto's face; he could feel the boy's cheerful energy deflate like a popped balloon. After a moment of dejected silence, Naruto shuffled away.
It wasn't just a strategic decision to avoid the village outcast. It was a visceral reaction. Proximity to that raw, healthy vitality made his own frailty all the more pronounced. It was a distraction he could not afford.
Later that evening, long after the other children were asleep, Akira managed to pull a stool over to the main window. He climbed onto it, his breath hitching from the exertion, and looked out. The village of Konoha was quiet, lit by the moon and scattered lights. The stone faces on the mountain were stoic silhouettes against the night sky.
As he watched, a flicker of movement caught his eye. A shinobi, a dark shape against the moonlit tiles, sprinted across a distant rooftop. They moved with a liquid grace, a power and freedom that seemed to belong to another species. They were everything he was not.
Staring at that impossible figure, the full weight of the Adjudicator's punishment settled upon him. It wasn't just about being weak. It was about being trapped in a world of titans, armed with nothing but a sharp mind and a broken body. The frustration was so immense it felt like a physical weight in his chest. But beneath it, the cold core of Silas remained.
This body was his cage. The world outside was his challenge. The path would be long, humiliating, and agonizingly slow. But as he stared out at the distant, powerful shinobi, a single, grim promise formed in his mind. He would find a way. Even if he had to crawl, he would find a way to gain purchase in this world. The climb had not yet begun, but he was, at last, learning the shape of the wall.