The rain over the Land of Fire was so fine it looked like mist, drifting through the air above Konoha rather than falling from the sky. It dampened the packed earth of the Ninja Academy playground and painted a cold sheen over the practice rails, the fence posts, and the rows of watching students. Even so, no one left. Graduation day had reached its final rounds, and for children born into shinobi clans, that mattered more than a little rain.
On the training ground below, two boys lunged at each other with kunai in hand. Their movements were still rough around the edges, but not rough enough to be dismissed. Every exchange drew sharp looks from the students gathered around the field, because everyone here knew this was no simple spar. This fight would help decide their graduation results - and maybe even who stood at the top of this year's class.
'The written test results are out. You're first again, Yuan.'
Leaning lazily against the railing, a blade of grass hanging from the corner of his mouth, Nara Shikaku sounded as if he were commenting on the weather. Beside him, Uchiha Genji - Gen to those who knew him - shook the last crumbs out of an empty snack bag, glanced down at the battlefield, and answered without much excitement.
'The written test only counts for forty percent. It doesn't mean much.' He crumpled the bag in one hand, then casually reached into Akimichi Choza's pack and pulled out a fresh pouch of dried fruit. 'Besides, being able to control your score so precisely that you land on sixty every time is probably harder than taking first.'
Choza blinked his small eyes a few times. He looked at the rapidly diminishing mountain of snacks in his backpack, then at Gen's hand already rummaging around for more, and finally chose silence. His temperament was far gentler than his massive appetite suggested. As long as he didn't go hungry himself, he rarely minded sharing food with his classmates.
That generosity, unfortunately, had become public knowledge.
By now, most of the elite students waiting for their own turns had settled around Choza like birds around scattered grain. One grabbed melon seeds. Another took dried plums. Someone else boldly reached for a handful of nuts before sitting down near the fence to enjoy the show. No one was embarrassed about it. The practical exam was reaching its climax, and snacks made good company for spectacle.
'Tch. Looks like it's about over,' Shikaku said, pushing himself upright and stretching his arms over his head. His eyes remained on the field. 'Yan Jun should win this practical assessment.'
The graduation exam at the Ninja Academy had already gone through several stages. Once this fight ended, the entire process would almost be over. Under normal circumstances, the academy only needed to test the students' mastery of the Three Basic Techniques. But normal circumstances had died two years ago, when the Fourth Shinobi World War broke out and consumed shinobi lives faster than Konoha could replace them.
Even Nawaki - the First Hokage's grandson, who had graduated during that period - had ended up dead on the battlefield. Since then, the village had started demanding more from its academy students. Beginning this year, graduation no longer depended only on basic ninjutsu. Practical combat drills were now graded as part of the final assessment as well, a harsh but necessary change born from wartime reality.
Gen tossed a raisin into his mouth and chewed slowly. 'Hard to say. Dao Huo still has something hidden.'
At the moment, Sarutobi Enjun clearly held the advantage. He was the eldest son of the Sarutobi clan and fought with the confidence that came from both talent and status. But Gen knew something the others did not - or at least, something most of them had forgotten. Over the winter break, Uchiha Inahisa had learned a C-rank ninjutsu through the Uchiha clan's own school.
That alone was enough to change everything.
The resources available to children from shinobi clans had always been far beyond what ordinary academy students could hope for. The Uchiha clan, especially, stood at the peak of that structure. As one of the most powerful and prestigious clans in the current ninja world, they possessed not only bloodline talent and influence, but a complete internal educational system of their own.
Normally, the clan school existed to build a proper foundation before children entered the Academy. But during winter and summer breaks, it also reopened its doors to students already enrolled, turning holiday time into something close to a brutal cram school. The clan had no interest in letting its younger generation embarrass the Uchiha name with poor results.
Inahisa had excellent grades from the start and the talent to compete for first place among this year's trainees. On top of that, her father was a jonin who had awakened the Sharingan to three tomoe. At this stage of her life, there were very few children in the class whose resources matched hers. Even Sarutobi Enjun being the Third Hokage's eldest son didn't change that much.
As for Gen... his situation was a little special.
In terms of natural talent, he judged himself to be only somewhat above average. Better than most, perhaps, but nowhere near the monsters born into this era. His real advantage had come from something no one in Konoha could have guessed. He was a transmigrator. Because his mind had matured early, he had gained a lead when he first entered the Ninja Academy, and with the support of the Uchiha clan school, he had managed to keep that lead from disappearing completely.
His resources were not as extravagant as Inahisa's or Enjun's. In a class packed with second-generation shinobi and clan heirs, that mattered. Even so, Gen had never fallen too far behind. With steady training, a mature mind, and a tiny bit of help from something that absolutely should not exist in this world, he had held his place in the top three for years.
That 'tiny bit of help' was the important part.
A pale blue panel that only he could see hovered soundlessly at the edge of his vision, as familiar to him now as the sight of his own hands.
[Character Name: Uchiha Gen]
Character Level: 8
[Currently Loading Character Card: Sakura Haruno (Ninja Academy)]
[Currently Available Item Cards: None]
Available Card Draw Attempts: 0
[Current Attribute Values: Ninjutsu 5; Constitution 4; Genjutsu 4; Strength 4; Speed 5; Spirit 4; Seals 5; Wisdom 6; Total 37]
The greatest gift his system had given him so far was that Sakura Haruno character card he had pulled from the gacha. In pure capability, many of his current abilities had already surpassed Sakura at the stage represented by the card. But the card had still done something invaluable for him: it solidified his foundation. It rounded out his weaknesses, stabilized his growth, and gave him comprehensive basic qualities that were no worse than Uchiha Inahisa's or Sarutobi Enjun's.
More importantly, it gave him Sakura's almost absurd mastery of fundamental knowledge. That single advantage was enough to carry him to near-perfect scores on every written exam. First place in the theory section had become so routine that Shikaku could mention it with half a yawn.
Yes, Gen had a system. And yes, he understood it unusually well - because before coming here, he had helped build it.
In his previous life, the company he worked for had developed and operated a mobile game based on the Naruto IP. The game had been wildly successful. Even though the servers liked to crash at the worst possible moments and players cursed them as 'potato servers,' the revenue charts kept climbing anyway. Player passion was profitable, and the company intended to squeeze that fact for everything it was worth.
So management had rolled out a new strategy: replication and expansion. On one side, they poured money into developing similar games based on other popular intellectual properties. On the other, they kept mining Naruto itself, trying to stretch one golden goose into an entire flock. A card game had been one of those projects, and Gen - then just another tired employee - had participated in designing much of its content and systems.
The problem was that the game had still been unfinished.
Before the project could be completed, before balancing could be fixed and all the content could be filled in, he had somehow crossed into the ninja world on his way to work. The half-finished game files on his work laptop had crossed over with him and fused into the strange system now attached to his soul. As a result, what he possessed was usable, but crude. The core loop of leveling and drawing cards existed. Most everything else was still missing, half-built, or obviously designed to fleece paying users.
The prize pool contained character cards and all kinds of items, good and bad alike, though the odds of drawing the better ones were predictably miserable. That part at least was familiar. If you wanted more draws in the original design, you were supposed to participate in events, engage with monetized gameplay, and - ideally - spend money until your wallet cried for mercy. Their company's creed had always been simple: pay to get stronger.
In this world, though, there was no recharge button.
Worse, because the project was unfinished, the rest of the gameplay hadn't been implemented at all. Even the experience system for leveling up existed only in a skeletal form, attached to a task-reward function. Fortunately, Gen had discovered early on that the missions issued by Konoha could be recognized by the system and converted into experience. Even the Academy's practical training sessions, monthly evaluations, and final exams counted, though only as laughably low E-rank tasks.
Still, low was better than nothing. Without that loophole, he would have been stuck with a dead interface and no way to progress.
'The match is about to end.'
The voice came from a brown-haired boy with a face that always seemed too stern for his age. Kurama Congyun stood a short distance away, arms folded as he stared at the field with narrowed eyes. As a member of the Kurama clan, his judgment carried weight - but in truth, he wasn't the only one who had noticed the shift.
A ripple passed through the watching students. The noise around the playground thinned. Even Choza stopped guarding his snacks long enough to look up properly.
On the field, the two combatants had suddenly broken apart.
Uchiha Inahisa slid backward over the wet ground, boots carving a shallow line through the mud. Across from him, Sarutobi Enjun planted his feet and squared his shoulders. The distance between them widened in an instant, not from caution but from intent. Both boys raised their hands at the same time. Fingers blurred. One seal followed another with growing speed.
The mood around the playground tightened all at once.
No one spoke now. No one needed to. At this distance, with those seals, everyone understood what was coming.
'Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!'
Brilliant flame erupted from Uchiha Inahisa's mouth, swelling into a roaring sphere that painted his young face crimson and gold. Heat rolled across the rain-damp training ground in a sudden wave, turning drifting mist into twisting steam. The watching students instinctively leaned back, eyes widening as the fire surged forward.
But Sarutobi Enjun had already completed his own final seal.
He drew in a breath, lifted his chin, and spat a blazing mass upward into the air. 'Fire Release: Flame Bullet!'