Konoha Year Thirty-Three, May.
The borders of the Land of Fire were in utter chaos. The three-nation war had plunged the Rain Country into devastation; countless ordinary families were torn apart simply because ninja from other nations appeared in their homeland.
Hanzo, the leader of Amegakure, could not turn a blind eye to such a situation. At the beginning of this year, he formally declared war on the Land of Fire, the Land of Earth, and the Land of Wind—the three chief culprits responsible for the turmoil in the Rain Country.
At the Ninja Academy, when Nawaki—now eleven years old and in his fifth year—learned that students from the third year upward, meaning fourth- and fifth-years, could graduate early, his youthful face lit up with delight. He completely failed to notice the worry etched on the faces of his sister, his soon-to-be teacher Orochimaru, and his sister's teammate Jiraiya.
In an age of war, early graduation was hardly a good thing.
"We can't just throw students straight onto the battlefield. That goes against the Second Hokage's original intentions!"
"This is all for Konoha! In wartime, we can't afford hesitation! Hiruzen!"
"Enough! I am the Hokage!"
"You'll regret this!"
Inside the Hokage's office, a familiar scene played out. Shimura Danzō stormed out in a fury, slamming the door behind him, while the ANBU stationed on either side exchanged uneasy glances.
"Close the door."
"Yes!" ×2
As the door shut, Hiruzen Sarutobi, seated behind his desk, took a drag from his pipe. How could he not know that the front lines were in urgent need? Yet as Hokage, how could he bear to watch children with no combat experience be sent to their deaths?
"White Fang."
"Hokage-sama."
A tall man with snow-white hair appeared in the center of the office, dressed in Konoha's ANBU uniform and wearing a mask marked with red patterns.
"There are many graduates this year. According to the list, have the academy instructors read out the assignments and placements for each student."
"Yes!" Hatake Sakumo nodded, taking the file from Hiruzen's hand. As his eyes swept over it, he noticed something unusual—one of the teams had a genin assigned as the instructor.
That was a bit absurd.
At this time, Sakumo was not yet known as the Hokage's Half-Sleeve, merely an ANBU captain. Still, he couldn't help but speak up. "Hokage-sama, I have something to say."
Hiruzen exhaled a cloud of secondhand smoke. Sakumo instinctively held his breath, childishly trying to dodge the leader's smoke. Then Hiruzen spoke.
"White Fang, did you notice something?"
"Yes." Like a straightforward subordinate, Sakumo pointed directly at the "error" in the very document Hiruzen had just handed him.
"Hokage-sama, this genin named Baixing—I don't recall him at all. At eighteen, he's still a genin, so he's hardly a prodigy. Why assign someone like this as a team instructor?"
Hearing this, Hiruzen recalled something quite interesting.
He stood up, turned around, and looked out over the village through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the three-story Hokage Tower. "White Fang, if I remember correctly, you've never failed a mission, have you?"
"Yes, Hokage-sama." Sakumo replied, still puzzled. "But what does that have to do with this genin, Baixing?"
Hiruzen turned back. In the prime of his life, his face was filled with confidence.
"Because Baixing is just like you."
"He also achieves a one-hundred-percent mission completion rate."
...
Second floor of the Hokage Building, the Mission Office.
A black-haired with lightly tousled bangs and a cool, handsome appearance stood before the desks of the mission-handling chūnin. In his arms, he held a snow-white cat that looked every bit like a noblewoman's pampered pet, as he submitted his mission report.
"Baixing, you completed another D-rank mission all by yourself. Impressive." The chūnin in a flak jacket gave him a thumbs-up, sighing in admiration.
"Mm." Baixing nodded calmly and said nothing, waiting for the mission office ninja to bring the noble lady over to reclaim her cat.
After two or three minutes, an extravagantly dressed, voluptuous noblewoman hugged her beloved pet and thanked Baixing profusely. Her gaze lingered on his face and build—such a handsome ninja was a rare sight. Before leaving, she even lowered her voice to ask if he might consider changing professions and becoming her personal guard.
"Sorry. I'm a ninja of Konoha," Baixing replied.
"What a pity." Though regretful, ordinary people were always somewhat afraid of ninja, so she didn't dwell on it.
Once the noblewoman left, Baixing collected the reward for his D-rank mission—five thousand ryō.
However, since he had taken the mission alone, without a team, he could only receive two thousand ryō.
Finding a cat was the lowest-tier mission in the village. Normally, such D-rank missions were completed by two or three genin together—but Baixing didn't need that.
Just as he was handed his payment, another chūnin entered the office with a file in hand. Spotting Baixing about to leave with his reward, he quickly called out, "Baixing, you're pretty lucky. You've been assigned by the Hokage to serve as a team instructor. If you do well, even if your strength is lacking, you might still get promoted to chūnin."
Baixing frowned. The two thousand-ryō bills in his hand suddenly seemed far less appealing. He had worked diligently to avoid becoming a chūnin—every time he participated in the chūnin exams, he deliberately acted useless. Even freshly graduated genin could defeat him, allowing him to remain a genin indefinitely.
In a way, his reputation was similar to Might Duy's. The difference was that Baixing was diligent—whenever he had time, he took on D-rank missions. Over six years, he had completed well over a thousand of them.
And now, all of a sudden, he was being made some kind of instructor. It sounded very much like a move to push him toward the chaotic and volatile border battlefields.
"Can I refuse?"
The moment he said that, not only did the chūnin in front of him freeze, but the other chūnin stopped passing documents as well. Even a jōnin squad that had come to submit a mission report stared in shock.
Seeing all eyes on him, Baixing immediately took the file from the chūnin's hands.
"I'm joking."
Then, without looking back, Baixing left the mission office.
Moments after he was gone, the chūnin—and the other ninja—burst into laughter.
"Hahaha, I never thought Genin Baixing would joke around."
"The mission maniac Baixing would never give up on a task that clearly looks challenging."
"Exactly! I remember when he failed the chūnin exams for the sixth time, he swore that if he couldn't become a chūnin through his own ability, he'd stay a genin for life. How could he be afraid of being a teacher?"
Inside the mission office, everyone used bits of everyday humor to dispel the gloom brought by the constant, heartbreaking war reports.
Meanwhile, Baixing left the Hokage Building, kept a low profile, and quickly returned home. Looking down at the several files in his hands, he fell into deep thought.