The Cruel Beginning

In Kirigakure, in the Land of Water, a hundred or so boys and girls chattered excitedly in the top-floor room of the Ninja Academy. Quite a few of them wore eager smiles.

Amid the haze, the noisy voices reached Chen Jie's ears. He couldn't help groaning, then clutched his head.

"What is this place?"

Chen Jie opened his eyes and staggered to his feet.

There was a window on his left. Chen Jie stared at it in confusion. Outside lay a completely unfamiliar world, while all around him, a crowd of boys about ten years old were excitedly discussing something.

"Japanese?" Chen Jie came to his senses a little and recognized the language spoken by those around him. The next moment, his mind went blank as fragments of another person's memories surged into his head.

The graduation ceremony at the Ninja Academy in the Land of Water's Kirigakure.

And the name that belonged to this body: Kanna.

"Kanna? My name is Kanna?" Chen Jie's breathing quickened, but he soon regained control. The expression on his face settled, and even his eyes went vacant.

But this wasn't calmness. It was the combined effect of melancholy, helplessness, confusion, horror, and countless other emotions—in other words, he was stunned out of his wits.

Perhaps what he saw and heard could be faked, but memories couldn't. At the very least, the strange memories suddenly flooding Chen Jie's mind were nothing that so-called "hypnosis" or "magic tricks" could produce.

With the help of those memories, Chen Jie could just barely understand some of what people around him were saying.

"I wonder what the exam will be."

"It'll be the usual tests, nothing more. Don't worry."

"Once the exam is over, I'm going to make Dad buy me that commemorative set of ninja tools!"

With so many things weighing on him, Chen Jie—or Kanna—grew increasingly tense. But as an "adult," he at least didn't panic. Instead, he took several deep breaths, forced down his shock, and quietly began to observe his surroundings.

Using the glass in the window, Kanna narrowed his eyes and carefully studied the boy reflected there.

He had short black hair, bright eyes, and regular features. But his eyebrows were drawn tightly together, creasing the space between them and betraying the tension of the boy who owned this body.

Kanna didn't care about this body's appearance. What mattered was that this entirely new and unfamiliar young body further proved that this couldn't be some kind of prank. He was supposed to be a twenty-year-old adult!

But Kanna wasn't someone who gave up easily. Without drawing attention to himself, he returned to his original seat and sat down, listening carefully. He still wasn't familiar with the new language in his memories, but he managed to make out bits and pieces. None of it was particularly useful, though. Most of them were discussing what they would do after the so-called "exam" or guessing what it would involve.

"An exam?"

Now that Kanna had a lead, he decided to search through those memories. But as soon as he focused on them, countless scattered recollections surfaced in a tangled jumble. There was no way to sort through them in such a short time.

Kanna frowned. Just then, the door opened, and five or six adults in strange clothing, as far as he was concerned, walked in. They took their places at the front of the classroom, and a middle-aged man at their head stepped onto the platform and swept his gaze across the room.

The man wore a sleeveless black shirt and bandages wrapped around his legs. The muscles in his arms and legs bulged. A silver-white Forehead Protector, engraved with four slanted lines representing raindrops, sat on his forehead. His eyes were so bright they were almost frightening. Kanna thought he saw a glint in them, and the man's gaze seemed to press down on him, forcing him to lower his head and avoid eye contact. But something stirred in Kanna's mind.

That clothing, and that Forehead Protector—could it be...?

"Good!" Before Kanna could be sure, the man spoke. Kanna understood that word without having to think, but the words that followed were much harder to make out.

"Quiet. Follow me to the exam site. Everyone, keep up."

"Oh! It's starting!"

"Is it a field exercise?"

The children cheered. Led by the adults, they lined up and filed out of the classroom. Kanna followed silently, keeping a low profile and doing his best not to give himself away.

The journey that followed was a little long. They left the school, walked through street after street, and didn't reach a remote wasteland until more than half an hour later. Kanna took the opportunity to observe the surroundings of this new world.

Quite a few people were already waiting on the wasteland. Given that this was an exam, they were probably the proctors.

When the students scheduled to take the exam that day arrived, the proctors nodded to one another. Then one of them stepped forward to confer with the man leading the group. With that, all the preparations for the exam were complete.

The students continued chatting excitedly, filling the place with a cheerful din. The teachers didn't try to stop them. Only after a proctor took a wax-sealed envelope from the man leading the group did they start telling their students to line up. The proctor tore open the envelope, took out a booklet, and began reading through it, calling out names one by one. The students entered the exam site in the order they were called.

Kanna looked at the wasteland before him. It was enclosed by a tall, long wire fence, with only one opening for people to enter and leave. He studied it thoughtfully. Just then, someone behind him gave him a gentle push and said something.

"Oh, right." Kanna realized his name had been called. He gave the girl behind him, who had kindly reminded him, a silly smile. Then he composed himself and stepped into the exam grounds, his unease written all over him.

As time passed, the last person finally entered the site. The proctor who had called the names gave a broad wave, and two men pulled the wire fence shut, sealing off the exit.

"Follow me."

The proctor led the group toward the center of the wasteland. He continued until the surroundings had become completely unfamiliar, then stopped.

"I'm announcing the rules now!" The proctor looked around, his face expressionless. "There are one hundred and twenty students taking the graduation exam. You'll be paired off and fight each other. You must kill your opponent to pass. Surrendering, admitting defeat, or pleading with a teacher will be considered invalid, and no teacher will accept it. In other words, at most, only sixty of you will survive."

Kanna was having trouble following. He only caught a few key words, but he keenly noticed that many of the children who had been excited or composed before were changing color as the man spoke.

"How can this be?!"

A cry of shock rang out, interrupting the proctor. Kanna turned to look. A boy had pushed his way out of the crowd, his face filled with confusion, shock, and disbelief as he hurriedly said something to the man.

Kanna could barely understand people when they spoke at a normal pace. Now his head hurt even more. Something bad seemed to be happening, but he couldn't fully understand what either of them was saying!

In this situation, Kanna could only watch their expressions closely. The proctor remained calm and let the boy speak without interrupting him. The accompanying teachers wore complicated expressions, while the children around them chimed in with words like "opposed," "no," and "withdraw." Kanna could just barely tell that the middle-aged man had announced something the vast majority opposed. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

That wasn't all. As the memories in Kanna's mind settled, he caught hold of one fragment after another. He seemed to understand.

The graduation ceremony at Kirigakure? Kanna's heart sank little by little. Could this place be the world of Naruto?

A bolt of lightning seemed to flash through his mind. As Kanna pieced together this part of his memories, a scene came to him, along with words he could understand.

"Tomorrow! Tomorrow is your graduation ceremony. Of course, it's also the first test I've mentioned many times—the one that will determine the course of your ninja careers. For some of you, it may even be your last test, so make the most of your time." On the platform, a man with his face covered in white bandages spoke each word slowly.

For some reason, in this memory, the past Kanna remembered the teacher's eyes particularly clearly. They held a bone-deep coldness, as well as a trace of pity so faint it was almost impossible to notice.

A voice devoid of emotion rang in Kanna's ears.

"Objections denied! Everyone must take the exam!"

The proctor seemed to have expected this. At a glance from him, the ninja teachers walked over to their students and spoke to them, trying to persuade them—or perhaps simply to prevent them from rioting. Their faces were stern. They ignored the children's wailing, and Kanna even saw a child who had made too much of a fuss get lifted up by his teacher, a gleaming Kunai held to his throat.

A short man on Kanna's side was explaining something to them, too. Kanna could only guess that the man was telling them not to back down, and that surrendering wouldn't stop the exam.

After a while, the proctor barked an order, and the teachers fell silent. They set off, leaping away several times before vanishing from Kanna's sight.

For some reason, watching this scene brought a thought to Kanna's mind that even he found laughable.

What incredible jumping power.

With the outsiders gone, the proctor swept his gaze across the students. Seeing that no one else dared to openly object, he continued, "You'll be paired according to the order in which you entered. Number one will pair with number two, number three with number four, and so on. The one hundred and twenty of you will be divided into sixty pairs and fight each other. After fifteen minutes, only the one person who survives in each pair will be allowed to leave and become a ninja."

"I'll leave you with one final piece of advice: in this exam, there are no rules except that you must kill your opponent!"

Kanna had more or less worked out what was going on. Combined with his guess about this new world, he knew what to expect.

"I don't want to! I quit!"

A chubby boy beside Kanna suddenly burst into tears. He shoved through the crowd and tried to run out of the exam grounds. But the next moment, a flash of silver cut through the air. With a clang, a Kunai grazed the fat boy's cheek and sank into the dirt, its handle buried.

"I don't want to!" The boy seemed to have been scared stiff. He collapsed to the ground, clenched both hands into fists, and let out one anguished cry after another.

"Withdrawal requests are invalid." The proctor stared straight at the boy. The chill in his voice frightened him into flinching, and he didn't dare make another sound.

Kanna heard a quick intake of breath. He turned his head slightly. A tall, thin boy was watching the fat boy who had tried to run away, his eyes complicated and his fists clenched. Kanna saw an expression in them that sent a chill down his spine. But it vanished in an instant. The tall, thin boy then silently stepped forward and helped the fat boy to his feet.

Kanna's eyes flickered. Just as he expected, the fat boy struggled violently. Trembling, he pulled a Kunai from his clothes, pointed it at the tall, thin boy, and blindly backed away. He kept retreating until he was ten meters away, then slumped to the ground in relief when the proctor pressed a hand against his back.

The exam hadn't even begun, and he was already too frightened to move!

Kanna took another deep breath and closed his eyes. He finally understood what he was facing.

A cruel slaughter—a trial in which fledgling eagles were forced to kill one another. It was Kirigakure's first test for training its ninjas, known as the Bloody Mist! A bloody graduation ceremony where they had to kill the companions they had once been closest to in order to pass!