The dorms weren't constructed for comfort, they were gutted warehouses. Partitioned and hastily repurposed into inductee dormitories for shinobi. The walls were thin, the floors creaked, and the cold crept through each rusted pipe like it was home.
Kagerō had never requested comfort.
He woke up before dawn, a habit etched into him from the earliest morning at the orphanage with a cacophony of wailing infants. The room was dark, with the gentle breathing of other boys wrapped in their allocated futons. Some snored. Others flailed in their sleep. One mumbled incoherently about kunai and frogs.
Kagerō sat up.
Quietly.
He wrapped his blanket around his shoulders and padded barefoot across the icy concrete floor. His designated corner wasn't much, merely a folded futon, a straw mat, and a cracked basin containing last night's water.
He knelt down and started his routine.
First: Stillness.
His palms pressed together. Fingers aligned. Back straight.
He shut his eyes and listened, not to the dorm, but to himself.
The vibration of Chakra under the flesh. The deep regular beat of his breathing. The soft throbbing of energy through the system he'd learned to understand was a second heartbeat. It was calm now, unaroused, latent and always awaiting him.
He started to move it.
Gently.
Leading it from his spine down his limbs, through his fingertips, and back up again. With each pass, he attempted to broaden the paths, stretching them out softly, as one might encourage a river to create its own channel.
The openings around his shoulder joints. He accessed them now, as he'd vowed. The soles of his feet were narrower than the others but gradually relaxing. It was tedious work. Silent work.
And it made him stronger.
Then came movement.
He moved into the flexibility sequence Mera had conditioned him to. It wasn't flashy. Merely long, slow poses that flowed into each other. His little body bent with ease, more than most adults could ever hope for.
One leg forward. Arms out. Chest up.
Hold. Breathe & Flow.
Even in the cold factory dorms, the march warmed things up. He enjoyed this segment. It made him think of home and the orphanage and of mornings when Mera hummed to herself as she counted blankets.
When he finished, the light outside had changed just enough to gray the windows. Faraway footsteps creaked past the door. Someone else was awake. Likely Rei or Dazuro.
Kagerō knelt once more at his mat and retrieved the thin, rolled-up parchment he'd concealed in the creases of his blanket. It wasn't official. Only lines and loops he'd sketched from memory, the flowchart of his chakra coils.
When the whistle blew across the grounds, summoning all inductees to the testing floor, Kagerō was already standing by the door, hair tied back in a neat ponytail, breath calm.
The day would try them all.
But he'd already passed his most crucial test:
Waking up and deciding not to be weak.
______________________________________________
Rain drummed gently on the steel roof, as if even the clouds were happy to just sit and listen.
The warehouse was empty once more, rows of training equipment pushed to the side. In their place stood a new array of equipment. Raised platforms, chakra measuring discs, and teachers who seemed much too serious to be teaching a group of kids who were still getting used to tying their sandals correctly.
Manju stood at the front, arms crossed, scar catching the light as usual. He didn't yell this time. Just gave them all a long, unreadable stare before he spoke.
"Today's not about speed. Or strength. It's about your chakra. What you've got inside."
A few kids straightened up. Some looked confused. Others… just tired.
"These discs will tell us your capacity. How deep your well goes, and how heavy each drop is."
He shifted to his right, motioning toward the discs arranged on low pedestals.
"Touch the seal. Channel chakra into it. The disc will rotate more quickly the more you provide. But it's not speed alone. It's how your chakra acts. Some of you have more. Some have less. Doesn't matter at the moment. What does matter is control and how you develop from here."
Kagerō stood in the crowd, hands loosely at his sides. His face remained unchanged, but within him, a small thread of interest began to vibrate. Volume and density, he repeated to himself. He had ideas, but no real reference point.
And so the first names were called.
A long-sleeved girl and wide-eyed stepped forward first. The disc shuddered ever so slightly when she handled it, turning enough to bring some nods of approval. Not bad.
Later on, some rotated slowly. Some hardly glimmered. A couple of kids scowled as they tried, face growing red.
Then Rei was summoned.
The clan boy strode with effortless assurance. Dark hair was pulled back, posture impeccable. He wasted no time; simply pressed his hand over the seal and let it flow.
The disc accelerated smoothly. Firm rotation. Better than most. And his chakra shone around it, controlled and close.
"Solid chakra density," one teacher whispered. "Not flashy, but he has a good foundation."
Rei moved back, gaze serene. He wasn't smug-looking but his eyes swept the room until they found Kagerō.
Yuni was next.
She moved more like a dance than a walk, light-footed. Brown complexion, neatly plaited hair, and an unobtrusive smile that didn't sit well with the nervous jumping of her fingers. She handled the seal as though it might nip.
Her disc turned slowly… but the chakra was lovely. Delicate, nearly silver in appearance, it moved across the metal like silk.
"Very refined chakra," someone breathed. "It's rare for a civilian."
Yuni executed a little courtly bow before skipping away. Kagerō caught her glance for a moment. She smiled. He blinked, then turned away.
Then Dazuro.
The quiet boy stumbled up like he was asleep. His disc rotated slowly, but it kept spinning… and spinning. And the chakra surrounding it didn't falter. It remained stable.
Manju squinted. "That's too uniform for it to be natural..."
"Right?" another instructor said. "That boy's keeping something secret."
And then—
"Kagerō."
His name, that was all that was said. Quiet. Simple. No expectation behind it.
But all eyes trailed after him.
He stepped up to the platform. Smaller, shorter than all the others thus far. Some of the older children snickered under their breath. What was a toddler going to do? Pass out?
Kagerō put his hand on the disc.
And let it rise.
The response wasn't quick. It gathered. A vibration, like a muted bell struck underwater.
Then the disc spun. Once. Twice. Then quicker. It started to buzz.
And then it roared.
The chakra halo burst into being, surrounding the disc and then elongating. Enlarging. The radiance condensed into a ring that was almost twice the size of the disc.
The teachers hunched forward.
"Wait—what?"
"He's only two—"
"That's not mere raw volume… look at the density!"
The shine around the disc was heavy. Dense, but controlled. Not wild. Not running.
Kagerō didn't blink. Just observed the disc rotating, then raised his hand in a calm motion.
Silence.
Even the whispers ceased.
He turned and strode back to his seat without saying a word. Only the slightest nod of his head, like he'd done no more than take a breath.
But he'd just blown the top off the test.
Even Manju, who hadn't flinched all morning, grunted in acknowledgement. "Watch out for that one."
Rei gazed at Kagerō with a flash of something new in his eyes. Yuni grinned, impressed. And Dazuro? The silent one? He nodded once, as if he'd just been vindicated about some secret only he was privy to.
"Ten minutes," Manju yelled. "The next test begins then. Leaf-sticking exercise. Don't stray."
Kagerō sat cross-legged on the floor, allowing the residual buzz of chakra to settle into his body again.
He wasn't fatigued.