The next morning, Sora and Tejuno walked to the Ninja Academy together. Tejuno greeted classmates along the way, waving, chatting, being Tejuno. Sora kept his mouth shut. Nobody except Teju, who'd grown up beside him, could coax more than a few words out of Kazeki Sora. That was the class consensus.
The students had barely settled into their seats when the sparring instructor walked in and announced that the academic studies teacher had fallen ill. The academic studies teacher, who was at that exact moment stepping through the door, froze mid-stride and stood there in the hallway, wondering if he should fake a cough to make it convincing. Some things were universal: combat practice was always the most popular class.
The sparring instructor didn't spare him a glance. He marched out with a classroom full of cheering students and headed for the training grounds. In Sora's old world, it was always the gym teacher who conveniently fell sick. But here, it was the academic teacher who caught the illness. The Ninja Academy had its priorities straight.
Sora had transferred into Class One in third year and knew everyone by now. After years of sparring, every student had fought every other student more times than anyone could count. The moment the instructor called a matchup, the whole class already knew the outcome.
Teju drew Uchiha Obito. A true clash of titans at the bottom of the barrel, evenly matched in their mediocrity, thrilling in its own tragic way. Tejuno's specialty, the various trap and mechanism techniques he'd learned from his father, was useless on a flat, open training ground with no terrain to exploit. Blunted practice kunai and Taijutsu were the only options for most students at this age.
Teju, Sora thought, enjoy this. This is your peak. Mount Everest-level peak. Once Obito goes dark side for love, nobody's going to trade blows with him on equal footing ever again.
Living in Konoha had taught Sora one thing: he couldn't judge the people here based on the manga from his previous life. Where you stood determined how you thought. His civilian status fixed his moral compass. A powerful clan that stood with the commoners was a good clan. That was the only metric that mattered.
He and Obito had zero connection. When Obito brought ruin to Konoha down the line, he wouldn't go easy on the village because some forgettable classmate named Kazeki once sat three rows away.
In the end, the match wasn't decided by who was stronger, but by who was worse. Obito, being marginally worse, lost. Nobody was surprised.
The instructor stared for a solid three seconds after the match ended. Sora guessed the man was trying to formulate constructive feedback on what he'd just witnessed, locked up for three full seconds with nothing to say, and gave up.
Several bouts later, the instructor called out: "Next match, Kazeki Sora versus Might Guy!"
Great. Did they even need to fight? At the Genin level, Guy's Taijutsu was untouchable. The kid had trained his body into something resembling a slab of granite. Without a real weapon, punching Guy did nothing. Getting punched by Guy, on the other hand, hurt plenty.
Sora formed the Seal of Confrontation. Guy was already bouncing on his toes, attack stance locked in. Chivalry? Never heard of it. The worst part was that Sora couldn't even beat this overeager brawler. Infuriating.
Wind Release: Gale Palm cost little chakra. Sora could fire off three. His fights against Guy had happened dozens of times before, and the script never changed.
Sora danced around the field, dodging. Taking Guy's strikes head-on was out of the question. He threw practice kunai at Guy's plant leg, forcing him to reposition. When Guy went airborne or shifted laterally, Sora seized the opening to launch a Gale Palm and blow him back.
Every time Guy went tumbling, Sora felt a stab of satisfaction. Can't beat you up close? Fine. I'll kite you. Three times, though. That was the limit. The frustrating part came after: once Guy was airborne, he lost the ability to counterattack, but Sora had no follow-up damage. Awkward.
Gale Palm's raw stopping power wasn't high. Sora hadn't mastered wind's cutting Nature Transformation yet. All he could produce was a dense ball of compressed air.
The class watched Guy get blown back a second time. Everyone knew the pattern. After the third, Sora would concede.
Flying kicks didn't worry Sora. When Guy launched himself forward with a straight kick, it was easy to blast him away with Gale Palm if you saw it coming.
Guy had figured this out. He'd developed a counter specifically for Sora: stay low, attack with sweeping leg kicks. Even if Gale Palm connected, his low center of gravity kept him from getting blown far.
This was likely one of the last sparring sessions before graduation. Sora decided to stop holding back. He'd noticed something a while ago: when Guy focused on attacking low, he left his upper body exposed.
Sora threw a kunai, then pressed his palms together, priming a Gale Palm. Guy dodged the kunai and, running on pure muscle memory, dropped into his sweep kick without a second thought.
But Sora didn't do what he'd always done. He didn't cancel the jutsu. He didn't jump away.
Guy had followed the old script to the letter. Sora had read every step of it.
Instead of retreating, Sora stepped forward. His pressed palms opened. In his left hand, a ball of compressed air held its shape, tight and stable. He passed it behind his right elbow. The air burst, driving his forearm forward, the forearm pulling the wrist along with it.
The training ground went silent.
Sora's palm opened and caught Guy's roundhouse kick bare-handed.
The strongest kid in the class had arrived, ladies and gentlemen. Catching Might Guy's kick with his bare hand.
Guy was still processing what had happened when Sora's foot caught him square in the torso and sent him sprawling. Sora stood there, picture of calm, left hand brushing dust off the hem of his shirt.
Why only the left hand? Because his right wrist was screaming.
"Sora wins! Guy, if Sora had been holding a weapon, you'd have lost that leg." The instructor stepped in and called the match.
The class erupted. Guy had beaten the living daylights out of every single one of them at some point. He was a collective childhood trauma. The whole class had suffered under his fists for years, and this catharsis was long overdue.
"Sora, go to the infirmary and have a medical ninja look at that wrist," the instructor added.
Sora turned and bolted. Running, tears streaming down his face. The stoic, too-cool-to-care facade he'd maintained for three years, shattered in the autumn wind. His wrist was on fire. Might One-for-One lived up to the name. There was no such thing as a free win against that kid.
Catching Guy's kick one-handed: Sora had also reached his peak. Mount Everest-level peak. I hereby crown you the strongest, Might Guy.
Three years of grinding Gale Palm. By sixth year, Sora had refined it the same way Nagato once had, to the point where pressing his palms together was enough to fire it off.
Palms together, jutsu out. Who bothers with hand seals? Only amateurs use hand seals.
This new trick, attaching the Gale Palm's air mass to other parts of his body to amplify Taijutsu strikes, Sora called Gale Palm: Revised. Creating original jutsu from scratch? That would never happen. No matter what, the only thing Sora would ever know was Gale Palm: Revised. Same concept as iterating on a single fighter jet design in his old world: keep revising, keep modifying, and one day the upgrade might surprise you.
The infirmary kept him late. School let out long before his wrist was cleared. Teju waited for him the whole time, and they walked home together.