The artificial sun had long since begun its programmed descent, painting Sunagakure's dome in amber and violet before settling into the deep blue of simulated night. The commercial district below had quieted. The ventilation systems hummed their steady rhythm through the walls of Primus Tower, and Chikamatsu Shin sat alone at his desk, surrounded by the soft glow of a single lamp and the faint pulse of his own fractures.
He had not gone home.
Spread across the low table were personnel files. Not mission briefings. Not threat assessments on the Golden Sanctuary. Something quieter than all of that.
Student profiles. Academy performance records. Mission assessments from their first deployments. And a handful of names he trusted with his life.
'The village is going to war... but I still have to think about the children.'
He picked up the first three without ceremony.
Momoku. Sumire. Zuto. He looked at them together rather than individually, because that was how he had to think about them—as a unit that did not yet know it was one. A blind boy who had survived a sandworm swallowing his entire family and still insisted he needed no one watching over him. A nomad girl rescued from a slaver's hovel inside his own village, jade eyes still burning despite everything that had tried to put them out. A clan outcast who spoke most fluently through the language of sharpened steel.
"Three children defined by what they have already lost. Three children who have no business smiling, and yet somehow find reasons to."
He did not write his own name beside theirs. He didn't need to. That decision was already made.
He reached for the next cluster.
Sabishii—hollow-eyed, ghost-followed, quietly more dangerous than anyone who met him would initially believe. His mission reports were sparse but efficient. His combat scores exceptional. His social integration scores... concerning.
"You are not 'cool with whoever.' You are trying to make yourself small enough that no one decides you are not worth keeping."
Beside his file sat Yuka's. The girl whose only preference for squad placement had been written in sharp, deliberate strokes: "With Sabishii." A request so plainly human it stood out among the tactical considerations of other students. Shin had read her behavioral assessments. What they revealed sat in his chest with the weight of things that couldn't be unseen. She was drawn to violence the way most children were drawn to sunlight. Not with malice. Not yet. Her taijutsu scores were exceptional. Her restraint scores were... developing.
"She needs a leader who will not pry, will not lecture, will simply exist beside her with enough ease that she never feels the need to perform. Someone too comfortable in his own skin to be rattled by her."
He wrote Ryota's name beside those two files and added Yoru to the group—still, observant, the kind of quiet that came from genuine peace rather than suppression. Her stealth scores were remarkable. Her written assessments thoughtful and precise. She would not demand anything of a reluctant leader. She would simply watch, and learn, and slowly make him feel responsible for her in the way only deeply perceptive children managed.
"Good luck, Ryota. You are going to be extraordinary at this whether you admit it or not."
He reached for the next set.
Shinda. Goro. Harikēn.
He set them down and looked at them for a long moment.
Shinda had been shaped by a clan that treated death as a daily conversation partner. His combat scores were flawless. His chakra control remarkable for someone his age. Goro had spent his life justifying his own existence through competence—six arms and all. His mission completion rate was perfect. His tactical assessments showed a mind that processed combat like mathematical equations. And Harikēn... Shin had read his file three times. An eleven-year-old who had survived five adult attackers, whose jutsu skills filled two full pages, who had essentially reverse-engineered advanced techniques through sheer concentrated observation. His instructors' notes used words like "prodigy" and "concerning" in equal measure.
"You are the most dangerous student in this cohort and you almost certainly know it. You need a leader who will not be intimidated by that... and will not pretend they aren't."
He wrote Kohana's name beside all three without hesitation. Strike squad. Shinda's bone techniques as vanguard. Goro's ranged silk and poison controlling the field. Harikēn dismantling whatever remained before most opponents had registered what hit them. And Kohana driving it all forward with the kind of controlled fury that would teach them the difference between violence and purpose.
"Some squads exist to protect and endure. This one exists to end things quickly so that protecting and enduring never becomes necessary."
He picked up the last three slowly.
Ayaka. Naomi. Maya.
The young Chikamatsu... golden-eyed, painfully shy, only truly herself in the Arboretum with her hands in soil. Her theoretical scores were exceptional. Her practical combat scores... less so. A fifteen-year-old still carrying the weight of watching her own power kill the person she had been trying to save, whose sarcasm was armor and whose persistence was penance. Her medical aptitude scores suggested talent if she could overcome the trauma. And a sheltered girl wrapped in silks by parents who had loved her by removing every sharp edge from her world, leaving her completely unprepared for a world made of nothing but sharp edges. Her academy records showed promise, but her instructors noted a concerning lack of resilience.
"You three are not weak. You are 'in the works.' There is a difference. Weak means broken. Unfinished means there is still time."
He wrote Kyuji's name beside them and held the pen there with a smile.
The Medical Chief. His former sensei. The person who understood better than anyone in this village what it meant to tend something fragile without crushing it. Three support-oriented students, healers in nature if not yet in rank, placed in the care of the most accomplished medical shinobi Sunagakure had produced in a generation.
"You will know exactly what to do with them. You always know what to do with broken things."
Shin set the pen down.
He sat back and looked at the files spread across the table. Four groups. Four different kinds of tactics. Four different definitions of potential. Four leaders whose strengths happened, not by accident, to match the children he was entrusting to their care.
The golden fractures along his collar pulsed softly in the quiet.
"The village is going to war. And I am sending children into a world that will not be gentle with them. The least I can do is make sure they do not go into it alone."
He gathered the files, stacked them neatly, and reached for his pen one final time. At the top of a fresh page, in the clean precise hand of a man who had spent years documenting the architecture of life itself, he wrote four names.
Shin. Ryota. Kohana. Kyuji.
Below them, in smaller letters:
"Do not fail them."
He folded the page, tucked it beneath the stack, and let the lamp burn a little longer into the night.
He had not gone home.
Spread across the low table were personnel files. Not mission briefings. Not threat assessments on the Golden Sanctuary. Something quieter than all of that.
Student profiles. Academy performance records. Mission assessments from their first deployments. And a handful of names he trusted with his life.
'The village is going to war... but I still have to think about the children.'
He picked up the first three without ceremony.
Momoku. Sumire. Zuto. He looked at them together rather than individually, because that was how he had to think about them—as a unit that did not yet know it was one. A blind boy who had survived a sandworm swallowing his entire family and still insisted he needed no one watching over him. A nomad girl rescued from a slaver's hovel inside his own village, jade eyes still burning despite everything that had tried to put them out. A clan outcast who spoke most fluently through the language of sharpened steel.
"Three children defined by what they have already lost. Three children who have no business smiling, and yet somehow find reasons to."
He did not write his own name beside theirs. He didn't need to. That decision was already made.
He reached for the next cluster.
Sabishii—hollow-eyed, ghost-followed, quietly more dangerous than anyone who met him would initially believe. His mission reports were sparse but efficient. His combat scores exceptional. His social integration scores... concerning.
"You are not 'cool with whoever.' You are trying to make yourself small enough that no one decides you are not worth keeping."
Beside his file sat Yuka's. The girl whose only preference for squad placement had been written in sharp, deliberate strokes: "With Sabishii." A request so plainly human it stood out among the tactical considerations of other students. Shin had read her behavioral assessments. What they revealed sat in his chest with the weight of things that couldn't be unseen. She was drawn to violence the way most children were drawn to sunlight. Not with malice. Not yet. Her taijutsu scores were exceptional. Her restraint scores were... developing.
"She needs a leader who will not pry, will not lecture, will simply exist beside her with enough ease that she never feels the need to perform. Someone too comfortable in his own skin to be rattled by her."
He wrote Ryota's name beside those two files and added Yoru to the group—still, observant, the kind of quiet that came from genuine peace rather than suppression. Her stealth scores were remarkable. Her written assessments thoughtful and precise. She would not demand anything of a reluctant leader. She would simply watch, and learn, and slowly make him feel responsible for her in the way only deeply perceptive children managed.
"Good luck, Ryota. You are going to be extraordinary at this whether you admit it or not."
He reached for the next set.
Shinda. Goro. Harikēn.
He set them down and looked at them for a long moment.
Shinda had been shaped by a clan that treated death as a daily conversation partner. His combat scores were flawless. His chakra control remarkable for someone his age. Goro had spent his life justifying his own existence through competence—six arms and all. His mission completion rate was perfect. His tactical assessments showed a mind that processed combat like mathematical equations. And Harikēn... Shin had read his file three times. An eleven-year-old who had survived five adult attackers, whose jutsu skills filled two full pages, who had essentially reverse-engineered advanced techniques through sheer concentrated observation. His instructors' notes used words like "prodigy" and "concerning" in equal measure.
"You are the most dangerous student in this cohort and you almost certainly know it. You need a leader who will not be intimidated by that... and will not pretend they aren't."
He wrote Kohana's name beside all three without hesitation. Strike squad. Shinda's bone techniques as vanguard. Goro's ranged silk and poison controlling the field. Harikēn dismantling whatever remained before most opponents had registered what hit them. And Kohana driving it all forward with the kind of controlled fury that would teach them the difference between violence and purpose.
"Some squads exist to protect and endure. This one exists to end things quickly so that protecting and enduring never becomes necessary."
He picked up the last three slowly.
Ayaka. Naomi. Maya.
The young Chikamatsu... golden-eyed, painfully shy, only truly herself in the Arboretum with her hands in soil. Her theoretical scores were exceptional. Her practical combat scores... less so. A fifteen-year-old still carrying the weight of watching her own power kill the person she had been trying to save, whose sarcasm was armor and whose persistence was penance. Her medical aptitude scores suggested talent if she could overcome the trauma. And a sheltered girl wrapped in silks by parents who had loved her by removing every sharp edge from her world, leaving her completely unprepared for a world made of nothing but sharp edges. Her academy records showed promise, but her instructors noted a concerning lack of resilience.
"You three are not weak. You are 'in the works.' There is a difference. Weak means broken. Unfinished means there is still time."
He wrote Kyuji's name beside them and held the pen there with a smile.
The Medical Chief. His former sensei. The person who understood better than anyone in this village what it meant to tend something fragile without crushing it. Three support-oriented students, healers in nature if not yet in rank, placed in the care of the most accomplished medical shinobi Sunagakure had produced in a generation.
"You will know exactly what to do with them. You always know what to do with broken things."
Shin set the pen down.
He sat back and looked at the files spread across the table. Four groups. Four different kinds of tactics. Four different definitions of potential. Four leaders whose strengths happened, not by accident, to match the children he was entrusting to their care.
The golden fractures along his collar pulsed softly in the quiet.
"The village is going to war. And I am sending children into a world that will not be gentle with them. The least I can do is make sure they do not go into it alone."
He gathered the files, stacked them neatly, and reached for his pen one final time. At the top of a fresh page, in the clean precise hand of a man who had spent years documenting the architecture of life itself, he wrote four names.
Shin. Ryota. Kohana. Kyuji.
Below them, in smaller letters:
"Do not fail them."
He folded the page, tucked it beneath the stack, and let the lamp burn a little longer into the night.