Chapter 20: War Criminals

The sun had barely cleared the misted rooftops of Amegakure when the workout ended. Manju left them in a heap, soaked in sweat, scraped raw by the gravel and the cruel rhythm of repetitions.

"Again tomorrow," he said, and then he was gone, a ghost behind the fog and drizzle.

Team Hollow lay sprawled in the mud beside the training ground, catching their breath. Kagerō's shirt clung to him, soaked through with sweat and rain. His muscles trembled, and his mind burned clear with pain and progress.

It felt like penance. It felt like a purpose.

Not long after, footsteps approached.

A chunin, face half-wrapped and eyes unreadable, stood above them. He waited until Yuni stopped groaning and Dazuro stopped pretending to be dead.

"You five. Get up. Follow me."

"Another test?" Rei asked, standing but frowning deeply.

The chunin didn't reply.

They followed him, each step slower than the last. Kagerō's calves burned. His shoulders twitched. Even the air felt heavier like the weight of their breath had mass.

Eventually, they stopped in front of a two-storey concrete building. Stark. Angular. Not even a flag fluttered in greeting. Just rainwater running down its cracked exterior like the place itself was crying.

A broken sign hung crookedly above the door, but the real message was carved into the iron slab bolted to the wall beside it.

WAR CRIMINALS.

The words weren't scratched in. They were etched.

Yuni squinted at it, then snorted. "That's… inspiring."

Rei glanced at the chunin, uncertain. "This… is the Academy, right?"

The man didn't answer. Just shoved open the door and motioned them inside.

Kagerō hesitated at the threshold.

War criminals.

He hated it.

He wasn't a saint. He'd seen too much for that. But that word didn't sit right.

He stepped inside.

The room beyond was broad and cold, shaped like an old mess hall that had been reworked into something half-school, half-bunker. Their fellow trainees were already inside, the other three squads scattered across mismatched desks and long benches.

Group Sable sat closest to the windows. One of the twins spun a kunai in hand while the other stared out into the rain. Kana, the girl who talked in her sleep, sat in their middle, muttering something into her book. She didn't look up.

Group Hollow shuffled to their corner and sat.

No greetings or fanfare.

The academy had begun.

And just like that, theory began pouring in his ears.

A grey-haired shinobi in standard gear entered the room without introduction. He carried a chalkboard slab under one arm and a worn-out bundle of scrolls under the other.

"Chakra," he said without preamble. "Energy is formed of the physical and spiritual. It flows through coils. Forms Jutsu. Fuels movement. Feeds strength. You want to live? You learn this first."

He scrawled a rough diagram on the board, tenketsu points, inner coil loops, external shaping.

Kagerō leaned forward, eyes narrowing. None of it was new to him. But there was something about the way it was taught.

Yuni was halfway asleep beside him. Dazuro was wide awake and pretending not to be.

Then came anatomy.

Charts of the human body were pinned to the walls. Pressure points. Joint structures. Where to strike. Where not to strike unless you wanted to kill. And where to strike when killing was the only option.

The instructor threw out questions like shuriken.

"Where's the brachial artery?"

"Which rib breaks easiest?"

"What's the fastest way to silence a scream?"

Kagerō answered quietly when called.

So did Rei. Flawlessly. His face gave nothing away, but his hands stayed clenched the whole time.

Next came plants and animals.

Venomous moss. Parasitic larvae. Mushrooms that induced paralysis, roots that numbed pain. Fish that could be caught in shallow water with a string, and insects that could be smoked for protein.

They were shown pictures. Dried samples. Even bones.

Kagerō took notes. His scroll was already filling up.

Then came survival.

How to gather rain in a dead zone. How to ration salt. How to check for rot on corpses when forced to scavenge. How to break into abandoned homes for firewood and not get caught. The shinobi next to the board said all of it like reading ingredients off a jar.

And then—history.

The wars before this one. The villages that fell. The names of the clans that no longer existed. The sensei wrote them on the board like a funeral list.

When he said Suna's blood sand campaign, Kana flinched.

No one mentioned it.

But the room held it.

The day stretched on. Ration bars for lunch. Water, if you asked. No breaks otherwise.

By the time the light outside had dimmed to soft twilight, the shinobi set down his chalk and closed his scroll.

"You'll come here every second day," he said. "Fight on the other days. That's the rule. Live long enough to learn it all, you might make it past twelve."

As he left, the silence returned.

Kagerō sat there, his hand cramping from how tightly he held his charcoal pencil.

War criminals.

He looked at his friends. Yuni, picking at the bench with her knife. Rei, staring too long at a burn chart. Dazuro, staring into space but listening, always listening.

Maybe they weren't criminals.

But they were learning how to become one.

--------

A drizzle coated the courtyard like breath on glass.

Kagerō sat cross-legged on a patch of worn tarp, sketching a rough diagram for an explosive tag in a worn notebook. Each line was deliberate. He was trying to map how the chakra fluctuated during its activation. The strokes were shakier than usual. His arms were still sore from the morning climb drills.

Dazuro sat beside him, balancing a boiled egg on his forehead. He hadn't spoken in ten minutes. He didn't need to. His snoring wasn't loud, just rhythmic, like rain against a cracked window.

Yuni had turned a discarded broom handle into a pretend spear and was now charging at imaginary enemies between the trees.

"I am the Princess of Pain!" she declared, leaping off a crate. "Scourge of the Mist! Slayer of steamed dumplings! Defier of Rei!"

"Do I even factor into that sentence?" Rei muttered from a bench nearby. He was methodically sharpening his kunai. Again.

Yuni paused mid-strike, squinting.

"You always factor in," she said solemnly. "You're the drama."

Rei gave her a withering look. "That's rich coming from someone who turned a mop into a war relic."

"I'm being creative, Rei-sama," Yuni grinned. "Try it sometime. Might loosen the stick in your spine."

Rei sniffed but said nothing.

Across the yard, the Lacerate kids were playing some violent variation of tag. Kagerō watched Saji flip off a barrel, hand extended, narrowly missing Riku, who spun away and laughed.

"Those two don't get tired, do they?" he murmured.

Kana, perched on a water drum, caught his eye.

"You'll bruise," she said suddenly.

Kagerō blinked. "Sorry?"

She didn't respond. Just hummed a little tune and looked back at the clouds.

Meanwhile, Squad Bramble was working through a knot-tying exercise. One of them, Kento, the quiet one glanced over and gave Rei a brief look. Rei returned it, but not without frowning.

"Who do you think's the strongest?" Yuni asked suddenly, flopping down beside him and stealing a rice cracker from his pouch.

Kagerō looked up from his notes.

"In our squad?"

"In everyone."

He considered it.

"Depends on what you mean by strong," he said.

Yuni looked genuinely impressed. "Oh no. A philosopher."

"Riku's the fastest," Kagerō continued. "Kana's dangerous in ways we don't understand. Nene can disappear. And you—"

She perked up.

"—have no volume control."

She gasped, mock-betrayed. "You wound me, Kagerō-chan."

Dazuro stirred. "You are loud."

"Et tu, sleep-brute?"

They bickered softly as Rei stood, stretching his arms.

"We're shinobi," he said coolly. "The strongest is the one who lives longest."

Yuni rolled her eyes. "Why do you talk like you swallowed a philosophy scroll?"

Rei sniffed again. "Because I read them."

Before Yuni could launch a verbal kunai, Manju's voice thundered across the yard.

"Five minutes! Be ready for rope-climbing sprints!"

Groans rose from every corner.

Dazuro slowly sat up, his egg falling and cracking on his knee.

"Training is painful," he said solemnly.

Yuni reached over and patted his shoulder. "You're very brave."

Kagerō closed his notebook and stood, brushing off his pants.

The drizzle hadn't let up, the wet environment had turned sickening for Kagerō. He'd forgotten the warmth of the summer and the cold of winds, he just retained the sense of heaviness brought on by rain.

But something about this moment, about the banter, the familiarity, the rivalry echoing just beneath the surface, felt solid. Like the foundation of something that might last. Or at least carry them through whatever came next.

Even if it was just more rope.

--------

The classroom ceiling was not made for feet.

It groaned faintly with every shift, a warning echo that this was not a place humans were meant to stand. Yet here they were, twelve children, upside down, shoes flat against stone, held in place by nothing but sheer chakra control and a touch of desperation.

"Arms behind your backs," barked Instructor Renga, a scar-nosed Chūnin with a voice like grinding gravel. "No hand seals. No wall taps. If you fall, climb again."

A groan rippled through the room. Rei gritted his teeth beside Kagerō, sweat already forming along his brow. Yuni's legs wobbled like kelp in the tide, and she let out a slow, whispery, "Whoooa."

"You're floating," Dazuro murmured from across the row. "In shame."

"I'm going to stab you with my toe," Yuni hissed, barely holding balance.

Beneath them, chalk scraped on the blackboard as another instructor, a balding man with an oddly gentle voice, began the day's history lecture.

"Today," he said, "we'll cover the First Great Shinobi War. The end of the ideal age. The death of peace for the rain village."

Kagerō didn't blink. His chakra was steady, anchored like roots through his soles, layered in gentle spirals. He tilted his head slightly to keep the ink in his gravity-defying pen from leaking as he scribbled into his notebook braced on the ceiling.

He was listening.

Attentively.

The instructor began.

"After the tailed beast negotiations were settled, it was Hashirama Senju who insisted on equal distribution. The world, in theory, had balance."

Kagerō's pen scratched softly.

"But the kages, the founding leaders, couldn't accept that peace. Some say it was pride. Some say fear. But all four, the Tsuchikage, Kazekage, Mizukage, and Raikage, plotted to poison Hashirama Senju, the first Hokage."

There were audible gasps, one child below actually slipped from the ceiling with a soft thud.

Kagerō's brow furrowed slightly. Hashirama Senju… poisoned? He had read of the man. The God of Shinobi. The man who captured tailed beasts like they were household pets. How could someone like that fall to poison?

He jotted a side note. Possibly false portrayal of history. Or... betrayal from within?

Afterall, Hashirama's death was a mystery even for an avid reader of the series.

The lecture droned on, but Renga barked again: "Eyes forward! Balance your body and straighten your spine!"

Half the students trembled. Rei's leg jerked once but he stabilized. Yuni giggled under her breath, only to nearly slip a moment later.

"Following Hashirama's death," the teacher continued, "his brother Tobirama rose to power. And unlike his predecessor… he didn't forgive."

Kagerō's pen stilled for just a moment.

"Tobirama Senju methodically hunted the first-generation Kage. One by one, Mizukage, Kazekage, Tsuchikage. He spared none. And yet, in the chaos of battle, two titans, Second Mizukage and Second Tsuchikage, fell to each other."

Kagerō could almost picture it. Two shadows clashed on a bloodied field, collapsing in final blows.

"The Second Kazekage," the teacher went on, "withdrew to his desert walls. Focused on the birth of puppetry warfare. He and his legendary shinobi, Monzaemon Chikamatsu, defended the sands with terrifying precision."

Rei grunted softly. "That was smart," he murmured, barely audible. "But aren't sand shinobi cowards?"

Yuni replied, "Falling off the ceiling would also be smart. I could nap."

"Shut up," Rei growled.

Kagerō ignored them both.

"Eventually," the instructor said, "Tobirama, tired of bloodshed, sought peace with Kumo. But it was a trap."

Everyone stiffened, and chakra flared unsteadily as tension spread through the class.

"At the treaty site… the Kinkaku Force appeared. Twenty-two elite assassins. Two demi-jinchūriki brothers, Ginkaku and Kinkaku. Tobirama and the Second Raikage were both attacked."

He paused.

"Only one lived."

Kagerō's chakra pulsed softly beneath his soles. Not from fear, from wonder. The story wasn't new to him. But hearing it laid out, within these walls, while upside down and straining...it felt… alive.

"The war ended not with a peace, but a wound. No side claimed victory. But Kumo, having preserved its Raikage and most of its forces, emerged the strongest."

"The Third Mizukage began rebuilding. The Second Kazekage continued defence. The Third Tsuchikage survived by diplomacy. And Konoha?"

The teacher's voice lowered.

"They gave the hat to a boy. Hiruzen Sarutobi. Youngest Kage. And weakest. At the time."

The lecture stopped.

The chakra exercise didn't.

Another student fell, yelping and tumbling into a desk below.

Yuni wobbled, one foot slipping, but she kicked out theatrically and swung herself back upright. "Ha! I live!"

"Barely," Rei muttered.

Dazuro yawned, upside down.

Kagerō still hadn't moved.

The notes beneath his hand had grown full: techniques, tactics, insights. But more than that, he wrote:

"History is never about peace. It's about delay. A delay between wars. Measured not in years. But in strength."

He closed the notebook, let his chakra flow shift, and dropped silently from the ceiling like a leaf.

The others followed.

The classroom smelled faintly of sweat and damp paper.

The silence was heavy as they landed.

History had ended.

But the weight of it hadn't.

Not yet.