Chapter Text
Being stuck with babysitting snot-nosed brats because of his injuries was not how eighteen-year-old chuunin Gonbee wished his mandatory long-term vacation would entail.
While most of his conscience had died a swift, painful death since he was twelve and plunged a sword through his classmate’s heart in their graduation exam, there was still something tugging at his heartstrings when he was reminded of the fact that he was sending baby killers to the frontline as fast as possible as cannon fodders.
But what voice did he have as a low-caste, middle-ranked, easily replaced shinobi? Kirigakure had already had the least ninja population thanks to Mizukage-sama’s ruthless graduation policies, and they were being pushed back on the front against those tree fuckers, so younger and less adequate ninja being pushed up to graduation class had already been accepted as a fact in the village.
Nevertheless, Gonbee still felt like scum walking on Earth each and every time he witnessed, or even worse, officiated the final exam. And this time, he felt even lower than trash than usual, because he might be the teacher whose student would break the record of graduation age in Kirigakure’s history.
Admission age was now four compared to the previous eight, and standard graduation age was now nine compared to the previous twelve. The biggest regret in Gonbee’s nearly-twenty years of life, was fucking five.
At least it is not as bad as Konoha, Gonbee consoled himself uselessly as he maintained his emotionless face while announcing the unfair graduation exam that only low-caste-born ninja hopefuls had to survive through, I remembered hearing someone saying they allowed a four-year-old to be a genin now.
Granted, a single year gap was not that much better, but considering how Konoha always prided itself as the ‘nicest’ hidden village among the Five Great Shinobi Nations, he couldn’t help but try to feel good about himself as he robotically repeated words that had been hammered into his blood and bones, “The graduation exam will be one-on-one combat. The perimeter is the entire sparring court. Everything is allowed. Winning conditions are to kill your opponent in fifteen minutes. If you step out of the ring, both of you are eliminated. If you kill yourself, both of you are eliminated. If you are unable to kill your opponent in the time limit, both of you are eliminated.”
Every single one of them understood that ‘being eliminated’ equaled death. Gonbee attempted to keep his poker face and not allow his eyes to wander toward his youngest student.
This was not the first time a five-year-old was put on graduation class, but it was certainly the first time a five-year-old was skilled enough to actually graduate, not just being killed off by their older classmates.
That was not what Gonbee was worrying about.
Whispers broke out among the ashenly pale students, as if they did not all know this would be waiting for them at the end of their Academy journey. Gonbee ignored those, and pulled out two random name tags from the box to determine the first pair.
His heart ached. It throbbed, when he read out the first pair of sacrifice lambs, “First pair. Yuki Kahyo and… Karatachi Yagura.”
For all intents and purposes, Yuki Kahyo should have had an adequate winning chance against a majority of her classmates. She was one of those lucky kids who were able to graduate at nine, the oldest age in class; she had a fancy kekkei genkai and knew how to use it, and her basic ninja skills were decent enough for a genin.
Too bad, her opponent was the five-year-old genius Karatachi Yagura.
But that was not what Gonbee was worrying about, either.
Both of them stepped in the ring with completely opposite temperaments. The Yuki girl seemed to be close to tears, determination and resignation etched on her too-young features, making her look much more weary than her true age. Though, if Yuki could be called as weary, then Karatachi must be ancient. The little brat looked as dead, creepy and tired as the day he first stepped into the Academy, his eyes were what most veterans could see in the mirror, his stance lethargic and unmotivated compared to Yuki’s nervous and fearful one.
Throughout his six-year ninja career, Gonbee had developed a fine instinct that would alert him about incoming disasters that were about to hit his missions. It was one of the major reasons why he was able to live through the average death age of fourteen that most of his fellow low-caste shinobi had died horrifically at. And now, that particular instinct of his was blaring like alarms in his head, all but telling him to flee the scene before something deeply terrible could happen.
But where could Gonbee go? Standing vigilantly around the room to watch the brutal rite of passage and ensure that no brats would run away was a team of potential jonin instructors, and for god’s sake, one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, Akebino Jinin-sama. He could not think of any reason to get himself out of this situation without being seen as a weak-willed, treacherous coward who was unable to go through with the traditions.
He covertly took a deep breath in, shoved the image of Karatachi’s dead, too dead eyes to the deepest corner of his mind, and fulfilled his duty as a loyal shinobi of Kirigakure.
“Start!”
No one moved. The other kids in the crowd held their breath, and his opponent seemed close to tears.
Karatachi threw his weapon pouch to the side. His face was the epitome of calmness, “Kill me.”
Fuck you, Karatachi Yagura, Gonbee thought.
For the first time in the months he was acquainted with the prodigy, there was something resembling a light in the kid’s unnerving pupilless eyes. It was too maniacal and unsettling, but it made the kid look a little bit more alive, and damn if the scene did not simultaneously scare him shitless and give him comfort that yes, Karatachi Yagura was not just a walking corpse .
Manipulation and deception were nothing strange in Kirigakure, and considering what kind of specialization Karatachi’s tokujo mother had before she died, most of their audience might assume that he was trying to trip his opponent up by feigning being defenseless. But Gonbee believed otherwise.
Karatachi Yagura was messed up like no one else Gonbee had ever met before, and it showed.
“Wh— What?!” Yuki’s eyes were opened in bewilderment and wariness as she tried to discern her opponent’s true intention, but her stance was shaken, the kunai in her hand not held as tightly. She clearly did not expect this from her normally standoffish, silent and scary classmate, which made Gonbee comment in his head, Karatachi’s strategy is effective.
But is it truly a strategy? The uncomfortable anxiety of being too close to an incoming disaster twisted his stomach, and it only got worse as Karatachi serenely walked toward his opponent, his footsteps impeccably quiet.
Karatachi came to Yuki’s middle only, but his presence seemed bigger than life at that moment. He had ensnared the attention of the whole room, from his classmates to the jonin instructors without even trying just like how his mother was able to once of a time.
Then, more gently than Gonbee had ever seen him before, Karatachi put both of his smaller hands around Yuki’s kunai-holding one. She seemed to forget to even attack entirely, irises raptly watching her opponent’s actions as if entranced.
(Karatachi Yagura was truly the son of his mother, from the looks to the aura)
He smiled.
It was as if he was a completely different person from the apathetic prodigy that Gonbee had had the misfortune of teaching throughout his second semester. His features softened, his eyes crinkled delicately, and at that moment, Karatachi looked so much like his kunoichi mother that it gave Gonbee whiplash as he positioned Yuki’s kunai above his neck.
A small line of blood oozed out under the sharpness of the weapon, soiling his green oversized scarf, but Karatachi seemed not to even notice, too busy whispering to his opponent with such an enchanting magnetism that made not only her, but every single person in the room gave him their utmost interest.
“Don’t you want to live, Yuki-san? Don’t you want to come back home to your brother that you treasure so dearly? Kill me, and you can have it. I won’t resist,” he sounded so sweet, so encouraging that Gonbee was tempted to call out a Kai to see if this was a genjutsu. Everything was so surreal right now, he didn’t understand what the fuck was going on anymore.
The Yuki girl had unshed tears in her trembling eyelashes, looking as out of her depth as Gonbee was feeling, “I— I don’t understand… Why?”
“Well, I don’t want to kill children, and I don’t want to be a comrade killer,” Karatachi explained. It was the most alive Gonbee had ever seen him to be, which made him momentarily overlook the strangeness in Karatachi’s chime-like words, “Being forced to kill your own classmate is harsh enough, and I would love to spare you the pain of betrayal of seeing someone you have studied with turn around and try to murder you. Besides, I don’t really have any interest in living, and you do, so it is better if you live, Yuki-san.”
At this point, it seemed that the jonin section of the audience had finally realized that the so-called genius had no intent to follow through with the exam procedures, and were aggressively signing to each other to find out what to do. Akebino-sama stood still as a statue, his sight dead set on Karatachi’s figure, unresponsive to the non-verbal conversations going on around him. And for the children…
There was something in their eyes, lit up by each word spouting out of Karatachi’s mouth, and Gonbee’s instinct felt more like a war drum than a simple alarm at this point.
He didn’t want to draw attention to himself, but he needed to… do something, or something really, really fucking bad would happen.
“What the hell do you think you are doing, Karatachi?!” He raised his voice, trying to sound as authoritative as possible, only to be rendered speechless when his youngest student’s pink eyes turned around to stare straight into his own. He flinched.
“Trying to keep my classmate alive and finish this barbaric, unjust exam as fast as possible, sensei,” Karatachi was like a whole new person entirely. Instead of the usual icy indifference and foreboding negativity that forced most people thought twice before trying to approach him, he was now practically exuding natural charisma, hypnotizing in the same way that his mother was infamous for when she was alive, “Unless you have a change of heart and decide to be a responsible teacher who cares about his students now, keep your mouth shut and just watch, Gonbee-sensei. Isn’t it what you have been doing your whole life so far?”
This brat! Gonbee felt his face burn in shame, and almost failed to recall that he is not allowed to interfere or step into the ring until the time limit ran out. However, his mortification was soon forgotten in the face of the next actions.
Yuki collapsed, then promptly burst into tears.
However, contradictory to her maudliness, she put her remaining hand around Karatachi’s hold on her kunai-wielding one, clasping them so strongly that her knuckles turned white. Despite the unsightly tracks on her cheeks and snots coming from her nose, her face was hardened with resolution and stubbornness, “I— I won’t kill you, Karatachi-kun! I also refuse to be a comrade killer! I will die with you!”
And the something that Karatachi had instigated in his classmates blazed to life with Yuki’s declaration.
“Yeah! I won’t be a comrade killer! I won’t go through with this exam!”
“That’s right! We won’t kill our own comrades!”
“Fuck this exam! Fuck you, stupid, heartless teachers!”
Ouch. That hurt.
The jonins were now signing at nearly unobservable speed, throwing around different silencing murder suggestions like a bunch of headless, homicidal chickens. Gonbee had no illusion that his class would settle down or comply with threats alone — seeing that some of the brats had already taken out their weapons and seemed willing to fight to die for their cause, there was no way that they would not be wiped out by their superiors.
This was going to be a fucking massacre.
Thankfully, fucking finally, the person with the highest authority in the room, Akebino of the Seven Swordsmen made a move.
“Silence!” The entire room quieted down, their eyes glued to the swordsman's figure as he strode toward the center of the room. Toward the reason that this… this mutiny was occurring.
“This is going nowhere! Halt the exam!” The fearsome shinobi grabbed Karatachi by the scruff of his neck as if he was handling an unruly cat. Strangely enough, the boy hadn’t made any sound since the beginning of the rebellion that he had started, his expression hidden in the downward turn of his head and the thick scarf around his neck, “Let’s see if you can keep that attitude of yours in front of Mizukage-sama, boy!”
Somehow, the war drum in Gonbee’s head just rang even louder.
Fuck. Karatachi is going to fuck everything up again, isn’t he?