The rest of the week at the Academy became a routine of brutal contrasts. Asahi found himself living at both extremes of the Gaussian curve: the best in the class and the worst in the class, often within the same morning.
Tuesday was Taijutsu.
"All right, tadpoles!" Iruka shouted in the training yard, his voice cutting through the hot air like a knife. "A ninja who can't defend themselves hand-to-hand is a dead ninja! Today, we'll practice the fundamentals of unarmed combat! Pair up and practice basic blocks!"
Asahi was paired with Kenji.
"Hey, Asahi," Kenji said, smiling nervously, sweat glinting on his forehead. "Take it easy, okay? I don't want to end up in the hospital."
"Just follow the form, Kenji," Asahi replied, adopting the neutral stance Iruka had shown them.
It was a simple stance: feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, one hand raised to block, the other ready to strike. It was… inefficient.
'Unbalanced,' Asahi thought. 'Center of gravity too high. Too much weight on the heels.'
Instinctively, he lowered his center of gravity, shifting weight to the balls of his feet, hips slightly rotated. A boxer/fighter stance, ready to explode or defend. Not the correct stance. But the correct one for him.
"Hey! That's not the stance!" Kenji protested.
"Kenji! Asahi! Pay attention!" Iruka called. "Kenji, throw a straight punch!"
Kenji obeyed, delivering a slow, telegraphed punch to Asahi's chest.
For Asahi, who had spent years perfecting his body, Kenji's punch seemed to move in slow motion.
He didn't block it.
Instead, Asahi pivoted on his left foot, redirecting the force of the punch past him. At the same time, his right hand hooked Kenji's extended arm, and his right hip slid directly beneath his partner's center of gravity.
'Don't use your strength. Use his.'
It was a perfect Ippon Seoi Nage.
Kenji let out a muffled scream as his feet left the ground. He flew cleanly over Asahi's shoulder and landed with a solid PLAF! on his back in the dust.
The entire class went silent.
Kenji blinked, staring at the blue sky. "…What just happened?"
Iruka-sensei was momentarily speechless. "Asahi! That… that was a flawless takedown technique! Where did you learn that?"
Asahi shrugged, returning to his neutral (and incorrect) stance. "Common sense. If someone pushes you, get out of the way and throw them."
Iruka looked at him with a mix of astonishment and suspicion, then nodded. "Excellent instinct, Asahi! Ten points to you! Kenji… try not to watch your punch so much."
The rest of the Taijutsu class went the same way. Nobody could touch him. He wasn't as fast as Sasuke, who moved with innate Uchiha grace, but he was efficient. His movements were short, powerful, and capitalized on every mistake of his opponents.
He finished the class without breaking a sweat.
Then came History class.
Asahi sat at the back, feeling the dull hum of chakra fatigue from practicing Henge the night before — he had managed to turn his hair brown and slightly curly. Progress. The smell of ink and old paper filled the classroom. The air was dense, heavy, as if every word of history had been written in blood.
"All right!" Iruka said, now in academic mode, hands on the desk. "Yesterday you read about the founding of Konoha. Who can tell me the main political innovation the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, introduced that set Konoha apart from previous mercenary clans?"
Silence.
Kiba was sketching a wolf in his notebook, pencil tip scratching the paper. Arashi was snoring softly, head resting on his arm.
Ino raised her hand. "He… made peace with the Uchiha?"
"That was the result, Ino, but not the innovation," Iruka corrected. "Sasuke, do you know?"
Sasuke nodded without looking up. "The Mandate of Heaven."
"Close, Sasuke, but that's an older concept than the warring clans," Iruka said. "I mean the system he implemented…"
Asahi raised his hand.
Iruka blinked, surprised to see him participate. "Yes, Asahi?"
Asahi spoke in the monotone voice of someone reciting a text. "It was the creation of the 'Village System,' which separated military power from economic power. Before Konoha, ninja clans were contracted individually. Hashirama proposed a model where the village, as a unified entity, accepted missions and distributed payment. This eliminated internal competition between clans and centralized loyalty, not to a feudal lord, but to the Kage and the 'Will of Fire,' a concept of civic loyalty."
The silence that followed was even deeper than after the judo throw.
The other kids looked at him as if a second head had grown on him.
For the first time, Naruto looked up from his book. He stared at him with calm blue eyes, evaluating. As if he had just found an interesting puzzle.
Iruka-sensei adjusted his headband. "Asahi… that is… absolutely correct. Word for word from the chapter appendix. I'm impressed. Very impressed."
Asahi simply nodded, opening his own notebook.
The day ended with more ninjutsu practice.
And Asahi was back to being the worst in the class.
"The Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Technique)!" Iruka explained, voice vibrant with enthusiasm. "A pillar of evasion! You use chakra to move your body at high speed, leaving a decoy, like a log, in your place!"
POOF!
Iruka was "attacked" by another instructor, leaving only a wooden log in his place. Iruka reappeared behind the attacker.
"The trick is timing!" Iruka shouted. "Feel the attack, channel the chakra, and wish to be somewhere else!"
It was a nightmare.
Kawarimi was the perfect bridge between physical and mental. It required the explosive speed Asahi had and the chakra control he didn't.
His attempts were disastrous.
POOF!
Asahi tried swapping with a nearby log. Result: he stayed exactly where he was, and so did the log.
"More intention, Asahi!" Iruka shouted.
'I am trying… with intention!' he thought, frustrated.
POOF!
This time, he managed to create a smoke cloud, but when it dissipated, both he and the log were still in their original spots, now both covered in soot.
Kiba was dying laughing. "Man, you're the strongest and slowest ninja in the world!"
Asahi gritted his teeth.
He watched Sasuke and Naruto perform it perfectly on their first try. Effortlessly. As if it were as natural as breathing.
He wiped the soot from his face at the end of the day. It was official. He was the most unbalanced specialist in the history of the Academy. A Taijutsu god, a history genius, and a total ninjutsu failure.
'This is unacceptable,' he thought as he walked home, ignoring his classmates' strange looks.
He knew what he had to do. His shed was no longer enough.
He needed a place to practice evasion. A place where he could fail in private.
He needed to find a training field.