Two months remained until the Academy. For Asahi, they were the longest two months of his life.
The registration form lay hidden beneath his thin pillow—a constant reminder that the finish line had shifted. The past two years had been training; now came the main event he had been preparing for.
His first instinct was to double his regimen. Run faster. Do more push-ups. Hold the plank until his muscles disintegrated.
But the Asahi of now was smarter than the Asahi from two years ago.
'No,' he thought, a week before the first day, lying on his cot and feeling the deep ache of his morning run. 'Muscle doesn't grow when you tear it down. It grows when you rest. It's called supercompensation.'
It was a term he vaguely remembered from his previous life. The body, when damaged (through exercise) and given time to heal, didn't just return to its original state. It rebuilt itself stronger, anticipating a similar challenge ahead.
'I've spent two years breaking myself down,' he decided. 'It's time to recover.'
To the horror of his own discipline, Asahi took the final week off.
Not entirely off. He replaced hellish cardio with long walks. He swapped high-impact parkour sessions for deep stretches and the basic yoga he remembered. Most importantly, he focused on sleep—eight full hours instead of his usual six of light, paranoid rest.
It was torture. He felt himself growing soft. Each morning he woke without running, a pang of guilt stabbed through him.
'Trust the process,' he ordered himself. 'You're repairing the engine before the race.'
He ate everything Emi-san placed before him. The protein from eggs, the carbohydrates from rice. He was refueling.
The night before the first day, the orphanage was silent. Kenji snored. Miko mumbled in her sleep. Asahi lay awake—but not out of fear.
It was impatience.
He rose quietly and went to the shed one last time. The space smelled of old hay, dried sweat, and iron.
He stood in the moonlit room and tested his body. A deep squat, low enough for his Achilles to protest but without pain. A slow, controlled push-up, feeling the latent strength in his chest and triceps.
He felt… good. Solid. The rest week had worked. His body thrummed with restrained energy.
'Alright,' he thought. 'I'm ready.'
The next morning, Emi-san woke him before the others. There was no training to do. Instead, laid neatly over his cot, was a folded set of clothes.
Dark, simple pants of sturdy canvas, and a short-sleeved mesh shirt beneath a blue overshirt with no insignia. The Academy's standard uniform. Matching them were the blue shoes Emi-san had given him, now spotless.
"It's your first day," she said softly, careful not to wake the others. She handed him a wrapped bento box. "Don't skip lunch to train. I mean it, Asahi-kun."
Asahi dressed. The clothes fit well—strangely professional. Like a full uniform.
"Thank you, Emi-san," he said, taking the bento.
She looked at him, and for a moment, Asahi thought she might cry. But she only nodded, lips pressed tight. "Make the orphanage proud. And try to make at least… one friend. For me?"
Asahi grimaced. 'A friend. Another stress factor. God… no… oh right, for Hagoromo.'
"I'll try," he lied.
He left the orphanage as dawn brushed orange across the clouds. The morning air was crisp.
As he walked toward the Academy, he was soon surrounded by a sea of other children. Proud parents tightened headbands on their kids (though none were Genin yet). A Hyuga father scolded his pale-eyed daughter. A nervous civilian boy was pushed forward by his mother.
And then he saw them.
The Uchiha clan. A sea of dark hair and fan crests. Among them, Sasuke Uchiha walked with the expression of elite boredom. He didn't look arrogant—just above it all.
'Elites,' Asahi thought, tightening the straps on the empty backpack Emi-san had lent him. 'Born with everything.'
He kept walking. He didn't feel envy, not exactly—more a cold determination. 'I earned my place here. I'll become more than they can see.'
The Academy was a massive building, more imposing inside than out. He was directed to a classroom: 1-B.
He opened the door—and the noise hit him like a wall.
It was chaos.
Shouts, laughter, arguments. Eight-year-olds at their most unrestrained. After years of silence and the relative order of the orphanage, Asahi felt sensory overload.
'It's… a madhouse,' he thought, his first instinct to retreat to the shed. 'How is anyone supposed to learn here? It's inefficient. It's chaos.'
The instructors hadn't arrived yet. The children ruled the room.
He spotted a boy with a puppy on his head (Kiba Inuzuka) yelling at a hyperactive red-haired kid (Arashi Uzumaki).
"I'm telling you, Akamaru can smell you from a kilometer away!"
"That's because I'm awesome! Ask my brother! Right, Naru?"
Asahi followed Arashi's gaze.
Sitting quietly by the window, detached from the chaos, was Naruto Uzumaki—reading. A real book, thick and pictureless. He looked up, gave his brother a half-hearted thumbs-up, then returned to reading.
'Yin and Yang,' Asahi recalled. 'The loud one and the calm one.'
He saw Shikamaru Nara already asleep on his desk. Chouji Akimichi opening a bag of chips. Sakura Haruno and Ino Yamanaka whispering furiously about who would sit closer to Sasuke—who had chosen the farthest possible seat from everyone.
Asahi scanned the room. Instinctively assessing tactical positions.
'Not by the window. Too exposed. Not in the front. No observation. Not the middle. Trapped.'
He chose a seat in the back corner. Maximum visibility, minimum engagement. The perfect spot for an observer.
From there, he watched them all. The clan heirs. The Hokage's children. The noisy civilians.
They were his competition.
'They've spent the last eight years playing. They have chakra, they have names, they have families.'
Asahi pressed his hands flat against the wooden desk.
'I have my body. I have my routine. And I have two years' advantage in discipline.'
The classroom door slammed open. A tall man with a Chunin scar strode in. The noise dropped to a murmur.
"Good morning, tadpoles," the instructor said. "Welcome to the first day of the rest of your lives. I'm Iruka Umino. And if you think this is going to be easy..."
Asahi wasn't listening. His eyes were already on Arashi. Then Sasuke. Then Naruto.