Konoha's Training Ground Zero.
A breeze combed the treetops. Sunlight thinned as it fell into the dense jungle.
Rustle.
Something slid through half-meter grass, the sound of friction growing closer.
The trio that bullied Naruto lay prone.
Their tall leader gripped a kunai, eyes locked on the quivering patch ahead.
Rustle.
Closer.
Gulp.
The scrawniest boy's Adam's apple bobbed. The swallow was loud as a click.
The grass fell still.
The tall boy shot his follower a murderous glare, then flipped his grip to a reverse hold. He raised his arm high and whipped the kunai into the brush.
Thump-thump-thump.
A gray rabbit burst out, a strip of fur shorn short along its back. Its legs blurred. It zigzagged and vanished.
The tall boy scrambled up, only to watch it twist away between trunks.
His kunai stood naked in the dirt, a wisp of gray fur drifting from it on the breeze.
"Boss, it got away," the scrawny one said, still swallowing.
The tall boy's temper spiked. They had finally found prey, and this idiot had to make noise and scare it off.
Smack.
Yūta slapped the back of his lackey's head. "You that hungry. You could not wait one minute."
"It is not that, Boss. Rabbit smells so good. Soon as I thought about it, the drool just came," Taiji said, freckles crumpling with hurt.
Their other tagalong, Takaya, still purple from a beating Naruto had given him days ago, hurried to break it up.
"Kids, no fighting."
The gentle voice floated down from overhead before Takaya could speak.
All three looked up, startled.
On a thick branch sat a tall shinobi with blue-white hair, smiling down at them.
"Mizuki-sensei."
They blanched.
"State your class and names. Surrender your food and water, then continue the drill."
Mizuki tipped his head, left hand clasping his wrist as his fist rolled idly. "You can refuse, of course."
"Run."
Yūta barked, and the other two split without a word.
They bolted in three different directions.
Mizuki's narrow eyes half closed.
A moment later,
all three knelt in a row, tallest to shortest, each with a fresh welt on his forehead, waiting while Mizuki took down their names.
He ignored their wounded looks, slung their rations over his shoulder, and sprang away through the branches.
Leaves whispered beneath his sandals.
Bored, he patrolled. In peacetime these students were softer than greenhouse flowers. Running upperclassmen through a drill made sense. Letting first years join did not.
Their attempts at concealment were torches in a black room.
He had already gone easy, yet plenty of Academy kids were nabbed the moment they stepped inside the grounds.
In a single day,
many lower graders were sitting on two strikes and one mistake from failure.
The pattern was the same. After the first capture their food and water were gone. They bagged a rabbit and lit a fire.
No one knew how to dig a smokeless pit.
The rolling columns of smoke insulted his intelligence.
Huff.
He took three more steps.
Another plume climbed ahead.
He did not need to guess.
It would be another first year who did not know how to survive.
With smoke that thick, what were they roasting.
Frowning, Mizuki jogged toward it with the confiscated packs.
The closer he got, the heavier the smoke.
A tower of black rose through the canopy like someone trying to set the whole forest ablaze.
They had not actually done that, had they.
He quickened, clearing the last stretch in a handful of leaps.
"Ha ha ha. This boar smells amazing."
He heard the laugh before he reached the fire.
Which class shouts like that in a drill. Do they want to be caught.
He pushed through to the source.
A massive boar's head lay on a flat stone, eyes closed as if napping, blood still fresh. The quarters were hacked into five pieces, skewered on scrubbed branches, and propped between two saplings over a bonfire piled like a hill.
The flames roared and threw up curtains of black smoke.
A blond kid in an orange jacket stood with his back to Mizuki, handful of salt at the ready, drooling as he seasoned.
This was a survival exercise, not a cooking exam.
They were plating courses now.
The scene almost made Mizuki laugh out of anger.
Survival meant staying alive outside the village. It tested how you found food and water and how you stayed hidden.
Hunting was nothing.
To shinobi with chakra, most apex predators were lambs on a hook.
The boar was big for Ground Zero, but not absurd. Any genin with elemental ninjutsu could have put it down.
Decent combat sense. Abysmal stealth. Lowest marks.
He had already written the score for the loudmouth in his head. These brats needed to learn the value of concealment. He would confiscate the boar.
Tap.
Mizuki dropped from a branch and padded toward the blond, quiet as a cat. He stood right behind him and the boy still had not noticed.
Mizuki sighed. "No vigilance in the wild. Minus one more."
The voice behind him made the blond jolt. He spun.
"Mizuki-sensei."
Seeing the panic, Mizuki placed him at once.
Iruka's class. The demon fox.
His lip curled. Disgust flared in his eyes. Running into the monster ruined a day already heading south.
"You know the rules. That is one capture. Hand over all food. If I catch you twice more, you fail."
"Hey, Mizuki..." A voice cut him off.
He looked toward it.
A fellow instructor in a flak vest stood on a branch ahead, waving him away.
Mizuki knew him. They got along.
What was that supposed to mean.
Do not take him. Special treatment for the fox.
He frowned, about to ask,
when the blond shouted, "You cannot take it. Konome worked hard to bring this down."
He spread his arms to shield the boar, eyes blazing, ready to fight for the meat.
Konome.
The name hit something familiar. Mizuki sifted his memory and felt his stomach dip.
The blind girl who put Director Kazama in the hospital on her first day.
Since that story spread, the staff had quietly agreed she was someone not to provoke.
Mizuki did not rate himself tougher than Kazama the jonin.
Was this her kill.
He glanced at his colleague again.
Leave it. Go.
The man's eyes cut meaning hard, lips forming the words.
No wonder no one else had come despite the smoke.
A real friend.
Mizuki shot him a grateful look, stepped back from the boar's guardian, and took two more steps for safety.
Thunk-thunk.
Footfalls tapped in the distance.
A silver-haired blind girl with a cane walked toward them.
Mizuki did not hesitate. He turned and ran.
Watching him flee, Naruto stuck out his tongue, flashed an OK sign at the distant Academy "teacher," and pinched up another sprinkle of salt.
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