No one said anything after the man with the mask walked away.
The silence he had left was not frightening. Just...heavy, like when the grown-ups speak of serious matters and they don't remember there are still children in the room.
A scarred man, tall, approached next. Kagerō recognized him. 'Manju', he thought. He didn't have his mask on; maybe it was to hide the chin-splitting scar he had.
He didn't smile, but he didn't yell either. He had the expression of a man who didn't care to waste words.
"Heard what the commander said, right?", He drawled as if too bored to care for the proceedings.
No one reacted. They just stared.
"Creepy kids..." The jounin muttered under his breath.
Kagerō gave him an offended look. 'Their conversations are too advanced for kids to understand. What do they expect, patriotism?'
He was pulled out of his reverie by the scarred man.
"Four days," he said to them all. "Today, we test your body. Tomorrow, your chakra. Then your hands with weapons. And the final day. We'll see where you fit."
And then he turned and strode, expecting everyone to follow. Which they did, shuffling out of the warehouse-like chicks following a cranky rooster.
Kagerō trailed behind.
Outside, the testing ground wasn't particularly dissimilar from the courtyards at the orphanage, simply flatter, slightly muddy, with high steel walls all around. There were sticks and boxes and fences and wire. Everything seemed sort of like a playground that someone had gotten bored building.
Their first test was easy enough to grasp.
A trench had been dug straight into the earth, not deep, but extremely narrow, and lined with sharp metal plates on either side. The roof was low as well and had wire covering it. If you needed to cross over, you crawled. And crawl cautiously.
Manju had named it "The Crawl Pit."
The older kids went first. Some of them grunted, and some of them scraped themes, lives trying to go faster than they were supposed to. One even yelped when a piece of wire caught his pants and tore them. But he didn't quit. That was apparently the point.
When it was Kagerō's turn, no special words were said. Manju just gave him a glance that said, Your turn, and nodded.
Kagerō dropped down.
The metal was cold on his arms, and the floor was slick with the damp. He didn't hurry. His little body fit just enough into the space to slide through without bumping his head, although once or twice, his elbows brushed a corner, and he winced.
He didn't cry.
Didn't even frown.
Just kept crawling, belly flat, kicking legs behind him. The wire above only just touched his hair. His breaths were soft and even. He wasn't the strongest or quickest, but he was cautious. He observed the way the wire bent and surmised where it was okay to creep next.
Halfway, he saw another boy in front of him, one of the clan children, he assumed. The boy walked through the mud as if it were something he did daily, not caring about the grit or the narrow passage. Someone at the periphery called him Rei.
Kagerō observed his movements. He glided like a salamander; shoulders down, elbows in, head never raised. It was effective. Kagerō did not mimic it exactly (he was too small), but he recalled the rhythm.
His arms ached by the time he made it to the end, and one elbow was a bit scraped, but it was not so bad. He crawled out and waited quietly, unsure of what would come next.
Manju didn't comment, but he did look at his clipboard and scribble something on it.
And that was it.
No applause. No rebuke.
Just one test was administered.
Kagerō glanced back at the pit, then the other children. Some were still crawling. A few were already sitting, panting or pouting.
He sat too, not far from Rei, who leaned against a fence now, scraping mud beneath his nails with a twig as thin as a hairpin.
Kagerō said nothing. Neither did Rei.
But the silence wasn't painful.
There was more where that came from. He knew that.
But for now, he'd succeeded.
And he hadn't wept.
Which, in a location such as this, felt like a sort of victory.
The Crawl Pit covered the majority of the children's elbows and knees with dirt, but nobody cried too hard about it. A couple of the older ones just murmured at each other, comparing times, poking each other in the ribs as if it was all in fun.
Kagerō was quiet.
His elbow had already stopped bleeding. The cut was not deep.
Manju gave them little time to rest.
"Up," he said, voice sharp but not unkind. "Next station."
And they were off again, led in loose procession across the yard, to a wide, shallow rectangular pool. It was hardly knee-deep for the big kids, but it was wide. Underneath it floated poles and ropes, beams and boards, each one shifting ever so gently in the wind. It seemed a little like someone had constructed a playground in the air and lost interest in completing it.
"This," said Manju, waveling his chin, "is The Balance Gauntlet."
There were no questions. They'd got the rules down by now.
Fall in the water? You fail.
Get across dry? You pass.
The first girl to go was already ascending the ropes before anyone was properly attending.
Her name, it was whispered, was Yuni. She was not of a shinobi family. She wore hand-stitched clothing and was slightly too clean, clean enough that it indicated someone had made the effort to tend her. Her skin was dark and sun-kissed, and her braids swung after her like tassels on a celebratory dancer.
Kagerō observed her walk.
Yuni didn't charge ahead like the clan boys, who attempted to run and fell into the water with splashing crashes. She jumped, not high, but ethereal, as if on invisible strings flying her. Every step was light. Every pole or rope flexed under her but not too far.
As she whirled about one of the support beams before leaping onto the next, a few children actually gasped.
She wasn't just walking.
She was dancing.
When she splashed down on the distant platform, dry and smiling, someone applauded. Only once.
Manju didn't flinch. But he jotted something down.
The rest of the children made an effort. Some were fast. Others were clever. One boy cursed all the way across. And Most got soaked.
And then it was Kagerō's turn.
He approached the starting platform, little and reserved, still in wet clothes from the crawl pit. The older children chuckled slightly.
One of them grumbled, "Someone brought a baby to take a big kid's test."
Kagerō did not react. 'I am not happy being here, either', he'd have liked to retort, but reigned himself in.
He climbed onto the first beam and got down low.
He knew his legs were too short. His balance was good, but not at a run. If he attempted to bound from beam to rope like the others, he'd fall for certain.
So he didn't.
He crawled on all fours.
It wasn't pretty.
But it was steady.
He crawled like he had in the crawl pit, hands around the wood, feet cocked for purchase, body close to the surface. Each time a rope lurched, he hesitated. Each time a pole shifted, he stopped.
'Slow and steady wins the race', he chanted in his mind, knowing well he wouldn't win this race.
But never falling.
His hands throbbed and his knees burned by the time he reached the opposite side. His clothes dripped with mist and wind. But he was not wet.
And he hadn't slipped.
Manju looked down at his clipboard again. Scratched something in the corner.
Kagerō climbed down and found a patch of ground to sit on. Yuni was nearby, swinging her legs and humming to herself. She glanced at him as he sat.
"You're weird," she said, not unkindly.
Kagerō blinked. "So are you."
That earned him a smile.
Then Manju called again.
"Rest's over. Everyone up. Third station. Move."
And so, the second test was conducted.
The next would soon start