For the next four years, Xue Ge spent every day like this.
He could no longer remember when he had gradually begun cutting back on training his chakra reserves and started practicing chakra shape transformation and chakra nature transformation instead.
After his chakra affinities were determined to be wind and lightning, two new Anbu arrived specifically to teach him how to use those two types of chakra techniques.
Apparently, Danzo also possessed Wind Release, which made Yan place even greater importance on Xue Ge.
Xue Ge encountered considerable difficulties learning ninjutsu. Perhaps because of his disabilities, the chakra inside him easily went out of control when he tried to mobilize it. This also made him extremely poor at genjutsu, with a natural incompatibility so severe that he could not learn it no matter how he was taught.
But genjutsu was only a minor discipline anyway. Danzo did not care, and Yan did not take it too seriously either. Eventually, his genjutsu training was canceled, and more of the time originally allotted to it went toward ninjutsu practice.
After a year or two—he could not remember which—his Ninja Tools Throwing finally met the standard, and the white-haired Anbu began teaching him taijutsu.
During those lessons, the white-haired Jonin often fought Xue Ge to train him. He was exceptionally skilled with a short blade. Even while holding back enormously, he still defeated Xue Ge with ease.
Later, Xue Ge learned that this Anbu's nickname was White Fang.
A nickname that suited his style perfectly.
Xue Ge never neglected his physical conditioning. Yan kept taking him on runs around Konoha. At first, he could not keep up at all, but eventually he could stay right on Yan's heels. He also grew increasingly adept at controlling his prosthetic limbs, as though his arms and legs had grown back.
As time passed, even the traps Yan laid became hard-pressed to threaten Xue Ge. Sometimes, a new trick Yan devised would still catch him off guard, but even those rarely hurt him anymore.
Every night, Xue Ge was taken to Orochimaru's laboratory to lie down in an ocean of pain.
The blue liquid grew darker and thicker, until it was almost like blue paint.
The pain inside Xue Ge's body also grew steadily worse. Eventually, it felt as though countless needles were constantly darting through his muscles, dense and inescapable. Yet by then, he had grown accustomed to the sensation of blades slicing and flames searing him whenever he moved.
Just like that, four years passed.
It was Year 41 of Konoha, and Xue Ge was six years old.
Although he was only six, four years of hellish living had forced Xue Ge to mature rapidly. His composure no longer matched his face, and most of his childish innocence had fallen away.
Today, no one came to wake him early in the morning.
Xue Ge woke naturally on the operating table and looked around, but saw no one. Silently, he put on his clothes and fitted his prosthetic limbs with practiced ease. Then, leaning on his cane, he pushed open the door and left the research facility on his own.
The sun was high overhead. It was probably already past noon. After standing at the entrance to the facility for a moment, Xue Ge headed toward the forest outside the village as a matter of course.
A familiar place, a familiar person. Yan was waiting for Xue Ge beneath a tree, leaning against its trunk.
He held a tachi in his arms. When he saw Xue Ge emerge from the undergrowth, he adjusted his glasses, straightened up, and walked toward him. They stopped in a clearing and stood facing each other.
"Four years, exactly as of today," Yan said with a chuckle. "I still remember what you were like at the beginning. You've changed a lot."
"..."
Xue Ge said nothing. Beneath his hair, he touched the place where his missing eye had been, and the hard prosthetic eye that now filled it. After a long pause, he looked up at the sky.
"...Has it been... four years?"
His voice was a little hoarse, filled with a world-weariness that did not belong to someone his age.
Only four years? Why did it feel as though more than a decade had passed?
Xue Ge's gaze was hollow. The pain he had endured over these four years exceeded everything he had suffered in the twenty-odd years of his previous life combined. It was not that he had never considered ending it all during those four years, but every time, he had ultimately abandoned the idea.
To survive, he had chosen to obey Danzo. To want to die now, after submitting to Danzo, felt like making a mockery of himself. That small streak of stubbornness had kept him going.
Until today.
Xue Ge's clothes were ragged and unkempt. He stood barefoot on the prickly grass, his expression unmoved. He raised a hand slightly toward Yan. His prosthetic limbs were covered in artificial skin, making them look like real hands and feet.
At some point, Yan had already drawn his sword.
"You're even more exceptional than I imagined. I originally thought you wouldn't last through training this intense. I never expected you to go four years without missing a single day, keeping at it all that time-enduring for four whole years."
"You've also become increasingly proficient in actual combat. You've even forced me to block with a kunai to keep you from cutting me."
Yan swung the long sword in his hand. Its blade sliced through the air with a sharp crack.
"You've worked hard for four years. It's only right that I draw my sword to show you some respect."
Xue Ge remained silent. He merely drew a slender blade slowly from his cane. Long accustomed to his silence, Yan gripped his sword's hilt with both hands.
"Then-"
In the next instant, Yan's gaze sharpened to a razor's edge, and Xue Ge vanished.
"Give it everything you've got, kid!"
Clang!
The cane sword and the tachi clashed, throwing off fierce sparks that scattered across Yan's cheek!
Their faces were almost touching. Across the gleaming edges of the cane sword and tachi, Yan's excited smile and Xue Ge's indifferent expression were reflected in each other's eyes.
Kakashi Hatake watched Obito chattering noisily beside him, enthusiastically boasting about his bloodline ability, and rolled his eyes in boredom.
Unlike the gentle Rin, Obito had all the excitement to himself. All Kakashi got was the noise.
It had been a little over a week since he enrolled, and by now, every rosy illusion Kakashi had held about the Ninja Academy was gone.
In Kakashi's imagination, the Ninja Academy should have been full of children who looked like ninjas at a glance. They would compete with one another and advance together, tempering themselves in blood and battle like true ninjas, enduring suffering ordinary people could not bear-
Then he discovered he had expected far too much.
Not a single person in the class could put up a decent fight. Never mind that clown Obito-even the other Uchiha child in the class and the Hyuga Clan child constantly at odds with him failed to impress Kakashi.
Might Guy, who had started pestering him a couple of days ago, certainly had fighting spirit. But his actual fighting ability... Tsk. The less said, the better.
The teacher did not teach them combat, either. Instead, it was history, mathematics, and things like that...
He would have been better off going back
and training more with his dad.
Kakashi sighed. Just then, their homeroom teacher, Jōgiku Ryūsuke, walked into the classroom.
The students immediately quieted down and returned to their seats. Kakashi also sat up a little straighter. Although he disdained these noncombat lessons, he still respected their Chunin teacher.
"Ahem..." The blue-haired Ryosuke stepped up to the lectern and set down his lesson plan. Instead of immediately starting class as usual, however, he adjusted his glasses.
"Today, a new student is joining our class. He's a war orphan, so please take good care of him, everyone."
...A transfer student?
Kakashi raised an eyebrow. Did the Ninja Academy even accept transfer students?
For a moment, his curiosity was piqued.
Clack, clack, clack... A teeth-grating mechanical scraping came from outside the door. Then, under everyone's eyes, a masked person pushed a wheelchair into the classroom. A black-haired child sat in it.
"He's disabled?" "Huh? What's going on?" "His legs..." Immediately, the whole class began whispering, though most of the discussion concerned the wheelchair.
Only Kakashi felt a flicker of recognition as he watched the person pushing it.
That kind of mask... Anbu?
"Ahem." Ryosuke coughed twice, and the class fell silent again.
"Now, would our new classmate please introduce himself?"
"..."
Xue Ge rose from the wheelchair, retrieved his cane from beside it, and walked to the front of the classroom.
He lifted his head and looked at the many children in the room.
"Waterbird River Xue Ge. It's a pleasure to meet you."