"Ooh…" Satoru exhaled, his voice barely above a whisper as his hands locked into position.
The air in his room was still and heavy, the quiet of predawn broken only by the faint rustle of cloth and the occasional creak of old floorboards. His room was bare—by design.
The bed pushed against the wall, the small desk cleared of clutter, and an empty expanse of floor served as his training ground. There was no wasted space here; he needed every inch of it.
His fingers wove together, each hand sign clicking into place with practised familiarity.
Ram. Snake. Tiger.
"Clone Jutsu!"
"Poof!"
White smoke burst in front of him, curling and dissipating quickly. In its place stood… something. A lump of half-formed chakra shaped vaguely like a boy.
Its proportions were uneven; the head too big, the arms stubby, the legs bent at impossible angles. Its eyes drooped like melting wax.
Satoru frowned. "Didn't know I could create a nightmare."
The clone gave a warped grin, its face sagging before collapsing with a pop! back into nothingness.
Satoru rubbed the back of his neck, sighing. The soreness in his shoulders still lingered from Shisui's weighted chainmail sessions, but that wasn't the issue.
"Again," he steeled himself.
He straightened his spine, adjusted his breathing, and went through the sequence again, slower this time. His fingers trembled slightly at the tiger seal before snapping together.
"Poof!"
Another clone. This one had a face, at least, but its body was transparent in parts, chakra flickering weakly like an oil lamp on the verge of burning out. It swayed before dissolving.
"Tch." His lips twisted into a half-smile, half-grimace. "Almost six months in this world and I'm still not getting this."
Yes, he was technically five years old, trying genin-level ninjutsu, but Satoru expected more from himself, considering his true mental age.
So he kept at it.
Hand signs. Focus. Release.
"Poof!" A clone with no legs.
"Poof!" A clone with too many arms.
"Poof!" A clone that keeled over instantly, smoke rising like an insult.
"Come on…" he muttered, shaking the stiffness from his fingers. Sweat trickled down his temple.
"Crack!"
He rolled his neck, cracking itand steeled himself.
This time, he forced his breathing to steady, pulling his chakra into focus. His mind stretched across the inner pathways, funnelling energy with care, shaping it to the edges of his imagination.
"Clone Jutsu."
"Poof!"
And there it was.
The smoke cleared, revealing a boy identical to him. The hair, the eyes, even the subtle crease in the shirt collar, they were all perfect. For a heartbeat, Satoru simply stared.
'Maybe I really am handsome.'
Then, tentatively, Satoru reached out. His fingers passed through harmless illusion, and he laughed softly, relief flooding his chest.
"Finally."
The clone grinned back at him, still and silent.
He rubbed his chin, considering. "Now… how far can I push this?"
His curiosity got the better of him. Instead of the standard hand signs, he swapped the order.
Snake. Tiger. Ram.
"Poof!"
What appeared was an abomination—half his size, with a torso that melted like wax, one eye bulging grotesquely larger than the other. It gave a guttural wheeze before exploding into smoke.
Satoru stumbled back, coughing, waving the haze away. "Yeah, no. Bad idea." He coughed again, shaking his head.
"Note to self: hand signs are there for a reason."
He sat cross-legged on the floor, the lingering smoke curling around him like ghostly tendrils. His eyes drifted to the faint orange glow peeking through the thin curtains. The first rays of dawn were breaking.
"…Crap." He glanced at the clock on the wall.
The hour hand was well past the time he'd promised himself he'd stop. His stomach sank. "Sun's up already? I'm late."
Pushing himself to his feet, he dusted his pants and muttered, "End of morning class. Real class starts soon."
That morning turned into many.
Days blurred into weeks; weeks into months.
Every dawn, before the village stirred, Satoru practised. Clone jutsu became second nature, no longer a gamble but a certainty. By the third month, he could summon one with only two hand signs—Ram. Tiger.
He dreamed of one day cutting it down to one, but perfection could wait.
He moved on to Substitution Jutsu. That one had been a pain at first, finding the timing, the split-second awareness to swap himself with a nearby object. The first dozen times, he nearly faceplanted trying to vanish into smoke. But persistence carved the path. Eventually, he could slip behind a chair, a pillow, even his desk—leaving only a puff of smoke and a disoriented "dummy" in his place.
The Fireball Jutsu, though… that remained untouched.
Every time he unrolled the scroll and traced the hand signs, his chest burned with anticipation. But he'd snap the scroll shut with a sigh.
"Not here," he reminded himself. His little room would be ash in a heartbeat if he misfired. And besides, he wanted Shisui's guidance for something so destructive.
So he waited.
After academy hours, his days belonged to training. Shisui was relentless; the chainmail exercises, the chakra fortification drills, the endless laps around training ground seventeen. When Shisui left on missions, now more frequent since his promotion to chunin, it was Itachi who stepped in.
And Itachi… was a wall.
Thirty-two spars. Thirty-two losses.
Not a single win, not even a draw.
The defeats etched themselves into Satoru's memory. The first spar, when Itachi's leg swept his own from under him before he even blinked. The tenth, when a kunai flick disarmed him so quickly it made his fingers sting. The twenty-second, when he thought he finally read the rhythm of Itachi's movement—only to find himself face-first in the dirt, gasping for air.
Itachi's face never changed. Calm. Neutral. His strikes efficient, never cruel; his tone measured, never mocking.
Satoru's pride, however, felt the sting.
"Thirty-two to none," Satoru muttered bitterly one evening, staring at the ceiling of his room after yet another loss. "If this were Earth, I'd call it rigged."
But each loss carved determination deeper into him. If Itachi was the wall, Satoru would be the river, wearing him down drop by drop.
Months rolled forward.
The routine became a rhythm.
Dawn training. Academy. Afternoon sparring. Night meditation.
Nothing exciting broke the cycle; no sudden breakthroughs, no earth-shaking revelations from either the Yamanaka or the Uchiha. Just steady, quiet grinding. Satoru found comfort in it, even as impatience gnawed at him in the background.
Until one day.
The academy bell chimed, echoing across the grounds. Students spilt from the classroom, chatter and laughter bouncing between the walls.
Satoru slung his bag over his shoulder, mind drifting as he stepped into the courtyard. He was already cataloguing what drills he'd run that evening.
Then a voice cut through the din.
"Satoru."
His head snapped up.
At the far end of the courtyard, framed against the late afternoon sun, stood Itachi. That wasn't surprising—he often lingered after class. What froze Satoru's breath was the man beside him.
Tall. Stern. His hair was black as ink, falling neatly behind his head. His eyes were sharp, narrow, carrying the unmistakable weight of authority. The Uchiha clan crest gleamed proudly on his back.
Fugaku Uchiha.
Leader of the clan. Father of Itachi. A man whose presence alone weighed more than any training Shisui had ever put him through.
The man's gaze locked onto him, unwavering. His voice came again, calm but commanding.
"Satoru."
The name echoed in the boy's ears. His throat tightened.
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