"As of today, you all have become full-fledged Ninjas," announced a proud and smiling Iruka at the front of the class. "However, you're still Genin. The tough part's still to come!"
'Tell that to the dumbass who fought several S-Rank Ninja without even being a chūnin,' Yohei thought with a smile.
"From here on, you'll be placed in squads of three and carry out missions under your jōnin teachers. The groups have been determined so that the strength of the groups will be balanced. Now – onto the assignments!"
Yohei almost snorted out loud. That was some of the biggest bullshit he'd heard since waking up.
Still, as Iruka began reading off teams, Yohei noticed something interesting. What the teacher said was technically true… but only for the students without a clan. The non-clan kids were clearly being arranged to average out their skill levels and make them more or less equal.
"Now then, next is Team Five: Kuroyama Yohei-"
Yohei straightened up, eyes scanning the room. He didn't really have preferences, but he did have a worst-case scenario involving being pared with two of Sasuke's more… fervent devotees.
"-Mikazuki Souma, and Kouen Ren."
'Well,' he thought, 'that's better than I was expecting.'
~-=≡=-~
After all the teams were announced – no deviations from what Yohei remembered of "canon" – the students were dismissed, with instructions to return in the afternoon to meet their jōnin sensei.
Yohei watched as most newly formed teams immediately separated and drifted off on their own.
Yeah, no. That couldn't fly.
He had no idea which jōnin would run Kakashi-style "teamwork or you fail" tests, but he wasn't about to risk flunking because of poor coordination.
"Yo," Yohei called, approaching his teammates, "you guys wanna grab a bite? My treat."
"Well, you're not going to see me rejecting free food, that's for sure!" Kouen Ren declared. He'd already been halfway out the classroom door, but Yohei's invitation pulled him up short. His expression was surprised – then immediately brightened into a grin.
Ren was one of the more popular boys in class. With an androgynous look, sharp eyes, and dark spiky hair, he was a bit like Sasuke-lite – if Sasuke smiled, laughed, and flirted around on a regular basis. Whether that friendliness was genuine or cultivated? Hard to tell.
"What about you, Souma?"
The last member of their team, and tallest of the three, tilted his head slightly. His puffy white hair pushed up in the air because of his hitai-ate, making him look vaguely like a pre-teen version of Gojo Satoru.
He considered Yohei's offer for a moment – then nodded with a small, quiet smile.
"Great!" Ren clapped his hands. "Come on, I know a guy nearby who makes a mean kushiyaki."
~-=≡=-~
"So what did you two think of the team assignments?" Yohei asked as he bit down on a particularly succulent piece of meat and dragged it off the skewer, barely holding back a groan as the flavor filled his mouth.
Ren's boasts hadn't been empty – the kushiyaki really was something else. Yohei made a mental note to ask the chef for the recipe later.
"I mean," Ren said, already finished with his own and now lying down on the rooftop they were on, tossing the used skewer up and catching it in a way that left Yohei deeply concerned it would eventually jab him in the eye, "it's like Iruka-sensei said, right? It's balanced."
Souma hummed in agreement.
And, well… they were right.
Ren was the best of the three academically, consistently one of the top scorers in class. He also had stellar marks in shurikenjutsu – though he preferred senbon – and some of the best chakra control among their peers. What he lacked was taijutsu. He wasn't particularly strong or sturdy, and somehow all that dexterity vanished the moment a fist flew at his face.
Souma, on the other hand, was fast as hell in spars, fast enough to actually go against Sasuke without embarrassing himself, unlike pretty much everyone else. But he wasn't strong enough to make full use of that speed, and his hand-to-hand form was… awkward was the best word for it, like he wasn't used to the motions or the katas. His chakra control was very good, but his shurikenjutsu was middling, and his academics… well, he usually managed to pass. So there was that.
And finally Yohei himself – certainly the best of the three in taijutsu, even if Souma was still faster. But beyond that, he was nothing special. His grades were good, but not exceptional. He could reliably hit a target with a thrown weapon, but he couldn't do any fancy tricks like redirecting a shuriken with another. He practiced leaf concentration regularly, but from a failed tree-walking attempt the previous day he knew he wasn't anywhere near Sakura's level.
All in all, they covered for each other's weaknesses well and each brought something unique to the table – even if, in Yohei's case, what he brought was being competent enough at everything to fill any role in a pinch.
"Not for the clan kids, though," Souma commented, speaking for the first time that day.
"Yeah, well," Ren grinned, "it's not like we're in any position to talk about it."
Indeed, they weren't. Because while the clan kids all had the advantage of long lineages shaped for excellence in their respective ninja arts – traditions refined over generations, sometimes centuries – they themselves had a different kind of privilege over the civilian-born.
Namely, they all came from families of career shinobi.
"So you all know what's coming, right?" Yohei asked.
The other two nodded seriously – Ren even sat up and stopped playing with the stick, though only so he could bite down on it instead.
"If you ask me, it's kind of cruel to make everyone think they passed when chances are most of us will just get sent back to the Academy," Ren commented as he walked forward to look down at the street below. "I guess that's being a shinobi for ya."
"Is it that big of a deal?" Souma asked, confusion in his voice. "It just means another year of training before we try again. It's not like they'll ban us from becoming ninja."
Ren bit his lip and furrowed his brows – an expression Yohei almost missed before Ren was back to smiling. "I suppose," he said with a 'carefree' laugh.
"That's no reason not to give our best, though. The instructors at the Academy may be good, but it's nothing compared to being personally taught by a jōnin," Yohei said.
Ren let out a tiny, relieved breath – something he probably didn't even realize he did – and Souma nodded as if to say 'of course'.
The taller boy likely hadn't noticed anything.
"I think the best thing we can do now is get familiar with each other's capabilities," Yohei continued. "Depending on how our jōnin-sensei decides to test us, we could also use the time between today and tomorrow to squeeze in some training."
"You're talking like you've got something up your sleeves beyond what you showed at the Academy," Ren said with a grin.
Something like that.
"That's the case for all of us, isn't it?" Yohei replied with a smile and a raised eyebrow.
Ren's grin widened, and even Souma gave him a fierce smile.
-~=~-
When the afternoon came, Team 5 returned to the classroom with Yohei feeling a lot more confident about their future prospects.
He was surprised to find that Iruka wasn't in class, however. Instead, a few moments after they all got in, a jōnin wearing a flak vest and a forehead protector styled like a beanie walked in with a smile.
"Team 1? I'm your jōnin instructor. Follow me," he said, then simply turned around and left, three of Yohei's classmates scrambling out of their chairs to run after him.
And so it went for each of the following teams – one jōnin sensei after another coming in, calling for their team, and departing – until it was their turn.
The man who entered had a severe look on his face, with black eyes set in a natural glare and a scar over the side of his mouth that made him look dangerous. Everything else about him, from his hairstyle to his clothes, was neat and orderly.
"Team 5, with me," he said simply, and before he could even finish turning around, the three of them were already following after him. He glanced back and gave an approving nod before returning his gaze forward and marching away.
The three boys shared quick smiles at the prospect of having made a good first impression.
They walked up the stairs to the top floor of the Academy but headed in the opposite direction of the administrative wing, entering a private room that had clearly been prepared in advance – if the neat arrangement of four chairs was anything to go by.
They waited for the jōnin to sit first, only for him to shake his head with a sigh.
"There's no need to be so formal. Relax and take a seat," he said, gesturing at the chairs.
Doing as he instructed, all three of them sat down around him.
"Good. Now, I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Shirakumo Hayama, and I am your assigned jōnin. Before we proceed, I'd like to know a bit more about each of you. I already have your profiles, but I find it far better to hear it personally from the individuals in question."Seeing their hesitation, he gave a small smile. "It doesn't need to be anything elaborate. Your names, likes, dislikes, and dreams for the future will do."
Ren went first, raising his hand with a grin. "My name's Kouen Ren. I like art – especially painting and dancing. I dislike the cold and lazy people, and my dream for the future is to be the one who finally makes my family an official clan of Konoha."
Hayama nodded respectfully. "That's an honorable ambition. Next?"
"Mikazuki Souma. I like swordplay and rainy days. I dislike spicy food. My dream for the future is to become Konoha's greatest swordmaster."
Their sensei smiled. "You'll find that you have plenty of competition for that dream of yours – including myself."
Souma nodded firmly. "That just means more people to sharpen myself against."
"A good attitude to have. Next?"
Yohei gave a small wave. "I'm Kuroyama Yohei. I like cooking and reading. I dislike tight spaces and feeling stuck. My dream for the future…"
What did he want for the future?
Survival was an easy enough goal to keep in mind – if not necessarily an easy thing to achieve. Even if he became a ninja under Hayama and gave his best, there was every chance he'd die in a random encounter with someone far stronger than him, or amid the chaos of the Konoha Crush well before Pain ever set foot in the village. He could also be one of the countless people – people far stronger than he currently was – who died like flies against Uchiha Madara when the man decided to waste time before getting to the "real fun."
And that wasn't even counting how, if he focused solely on surviving, he'd hardly have time to actually live.
'Power, then?'
Power was a pathetic thing to chase on its own. Too vague. Too hollow. It could mean a thousand things or nothing at all.
More specific, then – chakra. Ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, and all of their wondrous variants.
He rarely had the chance to stop and marvel at it, but there was a part of him that hadn't used chakra as a kid. A part not used to being strong enough to leap up stories-high buildings, or fast enough that running across the village was quicker than taking a car. A part that still fell in awe every time he made a few funny gang signs with his hands and magic happened.
He liked that. He liked that a lot.
He wanted to reach the pinnacle of this path – to become like Naruto, Sasuke, Hashirama, Madara. People who could remold landscapes at will, outrun rockets, fall from the sky and brush dust off their sleeves. People who could cut the moon in half. Not because he actually wanted to cut the moon in half, or to lord the ability over anyone, but because of all the experience he'd be able to have with those capabilities.
In a way, it was similar to Orochimaru's own dream.
Which was precisely why Yohei recoiled from it. No matter how much late-Naruto tried to force a "reformed Orochimaru" down everyone's throat, he couldn't stomach comparing himself to a psychopath who experimented on children and fetuses.
Becoming stronger was both necessary for survival and genuinely fun – but making it the whole point was the path of a cultivation protagonist.
And nobody really liked a cultivation protagonist.
That brought him back to the beginning. So he tried going at it another way.
Suppose he did become strong enough to survive anything. Strong enough to do practically whatever he wanted. What then? What would he do with all the time that opened up? Would he be content with settling down, taking the occasional S-rank mission, raising a family, and praying that none of the Boruto-era nonsense he half-remembered ever came to pass?
Or was there something in this world he fundamentally disagreed with – something he'd want to change if he had that kind of power?
"...my dream for the future is to be someone like Lord Hashirama," he said at last, surprising everyone in the room. "I want to change the world of shinobi."
'I want to destroy the ninja system.'