Kumo no Machi no Mori, Cloud's Town Forest, was a very ostentatious name, for an undeniably unimpressive town. Called such because it was a town under the Kumo's direct control, that had a large forest surrounding it.

  Honestly, everyone you had ever known knew it as Ash Town, a strangely proud reminder of the forest fires that kicked up in the wake of the summer dry storms, or in the wake of some more dangerous traditions of the town.

  Of course, town was stretching the definition of the word. It had a few shops, one of which your mother owned, and you knew that there had always been talks of setting up a proper industry. But you also knew that the town refused to remove any of the forests that gave the town both its names, for too many their father was a woodsman, and so they were a woodsman. To remove the forest was a change that would wipe away generations.

  You hope that you never had to see it happen, Ash Town, even with its grim name, was a place you deeply loved.

  Your mother was not home when you arrived, tossing your bulging backpack to the side of the living room. She must have been still at the shop, despite the sun nearly having completed its journey across the sky. You suppose without you to worry about feeding she could stay longer, rather than trusting the shop assistants. Your father was never home when you arrived.

  Lightly you kick your sandals off, sending them clattering to the ground beside your backpack, before you slumped into the couch, eyes fluttering closed with a pleased moan as you stretched out your legs. Training at Kumo's academy was brutal, and now you were finally away from it, away from the mindset of the enforced grind you could properly feel the ache that burned into every part of you.

  You would keep training even here, you absolutely refused to let laziness be the reason why Torishi caught back up to you. You had stomped on her throat and you were going to continue doing so, remedials or not. But that did not mean you had not earned a few moments of comfort, in the quiet of your own home.

  "Kanaye? Is that you?" You startle slightly, and it takes a bleary moment to realize that you had slipped into a nap while lounging on the couch. You did not think the journey down the peaks of Kumo had exhausted you that much. "It is you!" You shake your head, as your mother's bright voice filled the air again. You glance over to her, and for a moment you just study her.

  You did not forget what your mother looked like in the six months since you had last seen her. But there was a... blur on the details. Little things that you never realized you could forget. Ones that you did not like not remembering. So you set about trying to impress them back on your memories. From the way her dark hair softly transitioned to something ever so slightly red, to the little greys in them. To the crows' feet that pulled at her mouth as she gave you a wide smile, to the way the tiny little scars on her hands felt as she pulled you tight against her frame - big but smaller than other adults, dwarfed by Father - and softly cooed about how much you had grown.

  It did not take her long to pull away, but she had hugged you long enough that you felt her slip a stack of Ryo into your pocket, more than you knew your Father would approve of. Immediately she set about setting you up at the dining table. The familiar sturdy wood was a stark difference from the traditional Chabudai you had spent the last few months learning how to kneel at.

  You knew you should have stopped your Mother from doing what came next, you had seen how hard she worked first hand, knew that she must have spent the last fourteen hours on her feet, cooking and preparing. But despite that, you stayed silent, unwilling to risk giving up what was coming next. Karepan was your favourite meal after all; and as she set a plate in front of you and ruffled your hair, you forgave yourself for being a bad son.

  Then you set about telling your mother about your life for the last few months, telling all about your first steps into becoming a ninja. Of hard conditioning, and learning how to use your chakra, and what Chakra even was. Of pushing your eight-year-old body to the limit time and time again, and the Taijutsu spars you were good but not the best at. Of not being the first to figure out the Jutsu - the Substitution at least, you figured out the clone first - and having to do all you could to catch up to the clan children. Then you told her of Torishi and her smug face, and her smug smiles. How she thought she was better than you, and how you proved that even where she was best you were better.

  Through it all your mother listened intently, her reactions were muted as you told her about your life but you knew where to look. Hesitance as you talked about how tough the conditioning, awe as you talked about Chakra, the mysterious smile as you talked about Torishi. The pride in her as you told her how good you were doing.

  It was... nice seeing it again. Open approval. Your instructors were cagey people, and rarely lasted more than a few lessons. Kusarihai-sensei was the only permanent fixture for your class, and he was detached at the best of times.

  Your father arrived home an hour or so into your conversation. The silent lumbering of his gait pausing for a moment when he noticed you on his way to the woodshed. He gave you a single nod, before announcing he would be going hunting tomorrow.

  Which was both a surprise, and completely unsurprising. Your Father was constantly hunting, selling his prey in town before he arrived home, or bringing it home if he thought the catch was good enough. But having him announce it was strange, he never needed to say that he was going hunting.

  You turn your attention away from the door, as you hear the woodshed open and shut. Was it... an invitation? You had been hunting with Father before, you had put an arrow through your first deer by the time you were four, despite how much you had to strain against the bowstring. But when that happened he had told you outright you were going hunting, and slowly those instructed hunting trips had disappeared as you were enrolled in the town's "school".

  Or maybe he was just telling you that he would not be around much, even with your presence. Telling you to not get your hopes up. It was difficult to tell with Father.

  You ate dinner as a family, your mother preparing a Sukiyaki, as she told you of the goings-on in the village. Taro's mother had another child, a daughter this time, and had named it Sachio. Which Taro she meant you had no idea, and not sure anything she could say would jog your memory enough to know. The shop had been earning enough money that she had been considering converting it into a proper restaurant. Now that old man Ryozo had decided that his nephews can go shove it up to their ass and closed up his restaurant, there was a need unfulfilled in the town's tiny economy.

  Of course, you encouraged her to do so, Mother loved cooking even more than she loved baking. Being able to do more than just serve finger food would be something you knew she would enjoy. It was not long after that, that your father finished his meal, gave you a single nod, and slung your mother over his shoulder before he left. A sight you were rather familiar with.

  So you retired for the evening, finding your room spotless, barring a few memento's you had gathered and kept over the years. Why you kept a rock having grown into a white stone when you were three you did not know, but you did not want to get rid of it. It was yours.

  Carefully you roll it over in your fingers, as you lay back onto your Futon, over the duvet. But your mind was distant from the bauble, thinking of what you were going to spend your weekend doing. The unstated, and maybe unmeant, invitation from your Father was tempting. You knew there was no better bowman in the town, even if he forwent the more traditional techniques involved in Kyūjutsu. You had seen him put an arrow through a rabbit's foot as it darted through the underbrush at well over two hundred meters, pinning it to the ground while preserving its main body. You later found the gift he had fashioned for your mother, two mitts that seemed to be made to protect her hands from hot crockery.

  But that being said, Father's hunting trips were often day-long affairs, finding tracks, marking an animal, watching its habits, studying its reactions to its surroundings. Your father employed a very traditional method of hunting, where he sought to learn everything he could about an animal before finally killing it. A day, or more that could be spent training your other skills.

  You had gained a great deal of insight into Kenjutsu when you fought Torishi, insight you wanted to refine into proper knowledge. You had idea's on not just how to improve your Kenjutsu, but were feeling confident that you could puzzle out the basics of Raido. Well, as much as you could without delving into the philosophical aspects.

  There was also the consideration for putting your focus elsewhere now you had humiliated Torishi. You doubted you would be paired with her again particularly quickly, and you also suspected you would be transitioning back to the more regimented Taijutsu spars. A great deal of people were hurt beyond the ability to push through for training, and unless this was more pain desensitization training. Your brow furrowed, you had not considered that before, the current pain desensitization training was small cuts and bruises at worst. Having the students train through the pain of injuries they got because they were not good enough would be a step up and a big motivator.

  You shake your head, getting back on track. Focusing more on Taijutsu, which came up far more often in your lessons than Kenjutsu, could be the smarter decision.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  And of course, a scowl crosses your face, there was always chakra control exercises. Your bane, more than anything else, compared to your peers with Clans.

  -

  Your Father did not talk much. You were never sure exactly why, the best you could tell he just did not like it. You had heard his voice before, obviously. Whispers to your mother that he loved her, instructions to follow him into the woods, lessons on how to actually use a bow.

  But beyond that, he stayed silent, letting his actions, and your mother do the talking. He had done it for so long that his actions could speak a great deal of words.

  He did not need to say a word for you to figure out what he was doing when he studied the target of the hunts claw marks. Nor did either of you need to exchange a word as you studied the creature as it lounged about the forest, watching it laze in the sun, or chew on the bones of its latest meal.

  To your Father, the hunt was not so much a hunt, as much as it was a study. In his mind, to land the perfect shot, he must understand everything there is to know about what he is shooting. You knew that it was not necessary, your Father had hunted every type of animal that existed in this forest in this exact way. If he wanted to, you are sure that he knew enough about the animals to always land that perfect shot.

  But he did not, and unless his hand was forced, would never. This was how your Father hunted, and this was the way he would always hunt. An almost meditative study of his target, before striking them down with a single, unavoidable shot.

  Part of you struggled over that lesson, the part of you that was not carefully studying the way the tiger's muscles flex as it jumped onto a tree. Stumbled and stuttered over trying to figure out how exactly it applied to you. Studying your opponent was paramount to victory, that was a concept that you applied against Torishi, your prior knowledge of her reliance on Raido had cut away at much of the advantage she could have had over you.

  But the lesson in Fathers hunts was not just to study your opponent, if it was then Father would be applying the lessons he had already learned and just take the shot.

  No, there was something deeper, something that you think you were missing, as you pull the bow Father provided taut, loosing an arrow that took the creature in the throat as it lowered itself into a stretch that had begun after you released the arrow. Exactly where you had aimed.

  The tiger was dead by the time you crossed the distance to get to it, it's weak batting at the arrow preventing it from breathing stopping after the first minute. You watch as your Father kneels by the beast's side, finger tracing around the arrow's shaft before with his hand he measures the width and length of its neck.

  Then, once satisfied, he stood up, slinging the tiger nearly twice your size and surely quadruple your weight over his shoulder, leaving the arrow inside. That was for whoever received the animal to remove, a reminder of the shot that was taken to provide them food.

  It was as you were travelling home that you saw the second Tiger. Smaller than the first, but this one was doing something unacceptable. In its sights was a White Deer, and already it was crossing the distance between it and the deer.

  It was difficult to explain to outsider what a White Deer means to someone from Ash Town, they were not exactly sacred, but they were incredibly important to properly plant a lifetree. A tree a father planted the moment they knew their wife was pregnant, fertilizing it with the carcass of a White Deer he hunted himself. It was a tradition that you knew was not practised as much as it once was. There was maybe fifty lifetree's left in the forest, and of those maybe four were younger than three decades. Yours was one of those young lifetree's, a hearty tree with strong roots, and whitebark. A sign of long health, and many successful hunts.

  While many in Ash Town did not observe the tradition anymore, they still knew the significance of a White Deer, and most would go out of their way to protect one as a cultural symbol. To those that still observed the traditions? The idea of a standing by while a White Deer died for anything but a lifetree was tantamount to the idea of standing by while a child was born still.

  You had loosed an arrow the moment you realized what was going on, the projectile whistling harshly through the air, on course to hit the Tiger before it could manage to catch the fleeing deer and dig its claws into it. It would have slammed into the beast's side, behind its leg, straight through into its ribcage, if not its heart.

  If the creature did not coil up close to the ground the moment before your arrow would hit, pouncing at the deer. A frown crosses your face. A miss.

  Your Father's arrow catches it right where you intended to hit a moment later, slamming it out of the air, to crumple bonelessly against a rock. The White Deer keeps running. Your brow furrows, as you stare into the distance at the tiger. Despite knowing how seriously your Father took tradition, a part of you had not expected him to shoot to defend the White Deer. He was incredibly committed to his style of hunting. A deeper part of you was surprised that he actually hit the shot, that he predicted the tiger's actions without his customary study.

  A frown crosses your face, as you mulled over what just happened. You suppose that this was the lesson you had been wondering about. The distinction between always studying an opponent, and just studying an opponent. You could not always study your opponent, and in a split second situation, you had to make sure that would not matter, by having already studied your foe.

  Your eyes flick up to your Father, as he stared down at you, grey eyes intent. You nod to him, and slowly he nods back.

  A smile crosses your face, glad to know you had figured out the lesson that your Father was trying to teach you.

  Today was a good day.

  -

  The time with your family passed you by quickly. Too quickly for your tastes. You went hunting once more with your Father, and spent a day helping Mother with her shop before the pressing need of time drove you back to Kumo. If you were considered tardy in returning to your lessons, or worse dilatory, then you knew the punishment would be swift and brutal.

  You had only seen one student play truant at the academy, and your instructors forced him to run the obstacle course for an hour straight, before personally sparring with him until they broke his jaw. You would rather not share his fate.

  So it was with a bag of Melonpan, the bow you had been using to hunt with your father, and one final hug from your mother, that you left on Sunday, arriving back to Kumo in the dark of the Monday afternoon, just in time to catch the final trip of the villages, massive conveyor. The only way to ascend to the important buildings in the peaks of Kumo, well the only way to ascend that was not personally climbing, a gruelling task for a eight-year-old.

  Getting to the Academy from there was easy enough, and it was sometime after the crescent moon reached its crest, that you slipped into your shared dorm, careful not to wake your dormmates and earn their ire.

  Something was waiting for you when you slipped into the bed, wooden and hard. For a moment you thought someone had played a trick on you, messed with your bed and your rest in some way. Your mind flashed with how you would track them down and convince them to never do it again. But it was no cruel trick.

  Or if it was, then it was a very expensive, very short trick.

  Your hand traced over smooth, black hardwood the quality obvious even just by touch. Your hand reaches the hilt of the short sword, bumping against the cool Shakudo metal. A frown wars with a smirk on your face, another expensive material. In the dark, it was difficult to make out much detail, but as your fingers slowly explored it, you determined that it was undecorated, barring a single tiny bird.

  Someone had left a Wakazashi in your bed, a shorter style of sword that more suited Kazedo than the ratty blade you had previously been using. More than likely it was an instructor, having seen you pull Torishi apart with a far inferior blade. The smile wins out against the frown trying to play on your lips, the warmth of pride chasing away the chill of the night. The idea that you had impressed one of your instructors to the point where they went out and bought, or had forged a short sword for your size, pleasing to you.

  At least, you hoped it was meant for you. You are not sure how you would take it if you woke up and someone told you that the blade was not intended for you.

  But that was something to be dealt with later, already with the late hour you were going to be exhausted in the morning, and you had no desire to exacerbate that issue, even if it was to admire the weight and balance of the sword, even still sheathed as it was.

  You limply roll over in your bed, and place the blade down, leaning against the wall, next to where you had set up your bow. For a moment you watch it with tired eyes, waiting to see if it would slip on the smooth floor, and when it did not you collapsed back into the bed, asleep in moments.

  -

  The sword was meant for you, or at the very least, no one attempted to take the beautifully balanced blade from you. Unfortunately, you were not given the chance to properly familiarize yourself with the high-quality steel, the moment you woke up, it was back into the grind of the academy.

  You were right in thinking that spars like what happened on Wednesday would be few and far between. While it was not an exact return to pure taijutsu spars with rigidly defined rules and points, it was close to it.

  Maybe if it stayed with the less regulated spars, where everything went you would have excelled more. But as it was, you did alright. Won more than you lost, made anyone who beat you work for it.

  It was made both easier and harder by the wary respect that your fellow students put on your skills. Taking down Torishi meant that regardless of who you fought, you were taken seriously. It got to the point where the perception of your skill many times outstripped your actual skill. People respecting your fuck ups like they were intentional, trying to read what you were doing and giving you the respect of space while they figured it out. It was often the space they gave you psyching themselves out that gave you the edge in the spars. But you were being treated seriously by all the other students, even the Clan children who were flat out more experienced in Taijutsu, who were a monstrous struggle to overcome even with the advantage of space.

  But like you said, you won more than you lost, and that included against people who were better than you.

  Time began to slip away from you again, days blurring into weeks, blurring into months, until an entire year was just gone. The strain of the academies curriculum, and the non-stop training you forced yourself through outside of it grinding down on you until you were ground down to a point where your left was your right, your up was Kumo's largest source of missions is supplementing other countries border guard, and you were taking on Taishiro and Hana at the same time in spars.

  If you were being honest, your life had become an almost visceral zen state, where you knew and would act but your mind and thoughts hardly made an impact. It was a strange state to think about, the times where you were given enough rest to snap out of it. A state that you noticed a few other trainee's shares at several points throughout the months. But they never stayed in it as long as you did, never went as deep as you did.

  It was strange, but you liked it.

  But it was not all just self wrought pressure to excel in the academy. You managed other things too, some things. You talked to people. Expanded your repertoire beyond just how to stab people. You talked to Yashi about his younger brother, and Suzukuma taught you how to make your own rope. Granted that was so you could make a rope to tie someone up during a survival exercise, but it was something.

  You even at one point ended up picking up a small hobby, something to whittle away the few hours you could not spend training, and were not submerged in the murky clarity of your zen state.

  -