NOVEL WEB Chapter 6: Ch.6
The academy's days settled into a relentless rhythm, dawn drills, chakra control exercises, shuriken practice, lectures on strategy and history, and endless sparring. As the months turned to years, the children grew stronger, faster, sharper. Yet Kirigakure itself grew colder, the mist heavier, as if the village itself could sense the coming storm.
Kumio's class advanced together, year by year, from small children who once squealed during snowball fights to determined preteens with eyes hardened by the academy's brutal training. The bonds they formed in those early days deepened, even as rivalries flared and tempers sometimes boiled over. Nights spent patching each other's cuts with Nari's careful hands, mornings spent racing up icy slopes outside the academy gates, days spent dodging the crackling whips of older students during ambush drills, they forged them into something like family.
By the time Kumio was eight, rumors of war had become bloody fact. Messages from Mist scouting parties arrived with fewer survivors. Teachers' lectures shifted from theory to blunt warnings of survival. The older classes graduated in haste, sent to reinforce the front lines. More than once, Kumio watched fresh graduates march from the academy courtyard, some waving bravely, others silent with fear, never to return.
Kumio lay awake at night, listening to Nidoka's quiet breathing from the next room, thinking of the friends he might lose when it was their turn to leave. His mother stayed close to home, always hugging Nidoka a little too tightly when thunder cracked in the distance, though the sky above Kirigakure rarely showed more than shifting clouds.
Their academy years blurred into seasons of snow and bloodied practice fields. By age nine, Kumio and his classmates were training with live steel. Bruises and cuts became a part of daily life. Sparring matches turned vicious. Each small victory was earned with sweat and pain.
Gakuto grew taller and broader, his scowl deepening but his loyalty to their group unwavering. Kuriko's speed sharpened until even instructors struggled to track her. Shien's mind grew keener, his strategies winning training exercises that would have ended in disaster for others. Sayo's shuriken skills became lethal; Aya's punches could break wooden targets in a single blow. Even Rin's stutter faded under pressure, his keen mind shining in written exams.
Through it all, Kumio pushed himself beyond every limit. He combined his Hyoton and Shikotsumyaku in secret, creating new techniques that left frost-cracked stone in the training yard. His Frozen Bone Lance, honed in stolen hours at dawn, became faster and stronger until it could pierce three logs lined end to end.
In the academy courtyard, the withered pine tree stood as a silent witness to their growth. The eleven of them gathered beneath it every break, sharing meals, secrets, and silent fears. They took turns standing guard when one of them was too exhausted to stay awake; they helped each other hide injuries from instructors who might report weakness to the wrong ears.
One afternoon, after a punishing endurance run, Kuriko collapsed under the tree, cheeks flushed. "It's like the teachers want us to die before we ever graduate," she panted, half-laughing.
"They're trying to weed out the weak," Shien replied, voice cool but bitter.
Daisuke's broad shoulders slumped as he offered Kuriko water. "But we're still here," he said, determination hardening his tone.
Kumio looked around at the faces of his friends, older now, but still carrying the spark of the children they are. He swore again, silently, 'I won't let them be sacrificed'.
The village itself changed with them. Once, Kirigakure's streets bustled with merchants and fishermen braving the mist. But as war devoured the mainland, caravans stopped coming, and Mist's elders grew more paranoid. Patrols doubled. Curfews were imposed. Whispers of betrayal spread through the population like rot.
In the Yuki compound, Kumio's father grew increasingly tense. Meetings with other clan heads stretched late into the night. Kumio overheard elders speak of border skirmishes growing bloodier, of hidden villages forming shifting alliances. He learned that Sunagakure had entered the war in earnest, clashing with both Konoha and Iwa. Rumors of slaughter reached even Kirigakure's shrouded walls.
Kumio's mother retreated deeper into the compound with Nidoka, who toddled at her side, now a bright-eyed child with a sweet laugh and the occasional spark of bone release flickering in her small hands. Rinazomi doted on her daughter, singing lullabies from the old Kaguya tongue. But Kumio saw the worry in his mother's eyes whenever a messenger hawk arrived from the front.
One evening, a distant explosion echoed across the village, rumbling like thunder through the mist. Kumio bolted upright in bed, hands already forming seals. Nidoka whimpered in the next room; their mother's soothing voice drifted through the walls. Kumio slipped outside, scanning the night sky. Flames flickered far beyond the village walls, and the acrid tang of burned chakra stung his nose.
A squad of jonin streaked past the Yuki compound gates, faces grim. Kumio watched them vanish into the dark fog, heart hammering. The war had reached their doorstep.
The academy grew colder in spirit as well as temperature. Teachers shouted with raw urgency, demanding perfection. Survival exercises became longer, more dangerous. When a lesson went poorly, the punishment was harsh, days spent cleaning latrines, extra laps through snow so deep it swallowed the smallest students to their waists.
One day, a new instructor appeared, a tall man with a mask over his lower face and eyes like black knives. His name was Saburo, and he made the old teachers seem gentle by comparison. He forced students to spar with older academy graduates returning for retraining, children barely older than Kumio who had already seen death on the battlefield.
"War waits for no one," Saburo said on his first day, voice like cracking ice. "If you are not ready, you will die. And your death will buy only a moment's peace for this village."
Kumio kept his head down, honing his techniques in secret. His nights were spent training until his breath came in ragged gasps. Frost formed around his feet as he danced through the Yuki compound's gardens, bone blades flickering from his arms in flashes of white. His father watched silently from the shadows some nights; on others, his mother appeared instead, Nidoka asleep in her arms, eyes full of unspoken pride and fear.
At the academy, he grew more distant with everyone except his closest friends. They noticed, but said nothing, falling into quiet solidarity. Together, they endured Saburo's punishments, his surprise ambush drills, his endless demand for perfection.
When Kumio was ten, the academy instructors began sending older students on temporary deployments to the front. Gakuto stood with Kumio outside the academy one evening, watching as another class was led away by masked jonin. "They're too young," Gakuto muttered, fists clenched. "They don't even have headbands yet."
"They'll get them on the battlefield," Kumio replied, voice flat.
Shien appeared at their side, cloak drawn tight against the snow. "That will be us soon."
Kuriko stomped into view, scarf flapping wildly. "Then we just have to get strong enough that we all come back together."
Kumio looked at each of them, feeling the weight of their shared years. We've come too far to lose now.
Winter deepened. Snowstorms swallowed whole weeks, blocking roads, trapping families in their homes. When the blizzards cleared, Kirigakure's walls grew taller, its guards more numerous. The mist outside thickened unnaturally, rumors claimed the elders were enhancing it with genjutsu to hide troop movements. Kumio saw bodies carried into the village under white shrouds, faces hidden, as silent lines of shinobi gathered in the square to be deployed again.
One afternoon, Saburo gathered Kumio's class in the courtyard. They stood shivering, not from the cold, but from the steely resolve in their instructor's gaze.
"You are the strongest group we have seen in a generation," he said without preamble. "But that strength will be meaningless if you do not learn to use it together. The war is not coming, it is already here."
He paced before them, voice rising over the howling wind. "You will graduate in one year. At eleven, you will take your place as shinobi of Kirigakure. Some of you will die. Some will not. That is the reality of war."
Silence fell. Snowflakes drifted between them, catching on cloaks and hair.
Kumio's hands clenched at his sides. He thought of Nidoka's bright eyes, of Kuriko's fearless grin, of Shien's calm certainty. He would not let the war steal them. He could not.
That night, Kumio returned to the academy grounds alone. He stood beneath the old pine, branches heavy with snow, and let the silence of the frozen world seep into him. His breath was calm, his chakra thrumming steadily beneath his skin.
He felt the village's fear in every gust of wind, saw the cracks spreading beneath the Mist's icy surface. But he also felt the warmth of eleven bonds, friends who had fought beside him, laughed with him, trusted him. They were his strength.
One year, he thought. Then the real test begins.