He ran through taijutsu forms until his muscles burned. Then weapons drills until his arms ached. Then chakra control exercises, tree-walking, water-walking, basic emission patterns—until the sun was fully up and other genin started trickling in.
Shin found him sitting by the stream, catching his breath.
"You look terrible."
"Thanks." Tatsuya didn't open his eyes. "Mission ran long."
"I heard." A pause. "The C-rank that turned into a C-plus. Missing-nin involvement."
"Something like that."
Shin sat down beside him. They'd developed this rhythm over the past weeks—comfortable silence, occasional observations, no pressure to fill the quiet with unnecessary words. It was restful in a way that Tatsuya hadn't expected.
"First time?" Shin asked eventually.
Tatsuya knew what he meant. "Yes."
"Does it bother you?"
He considered the question seriously. Did it bother him? He'd taken lives. Ended futures. Made children into orphans, maybe, or left parents to grieve sons who'd chosen banditry over honest work. The moral weight was real, even if the targets had been trying to kill him first.
"It should," he said finally. "I keep waiting for it to hit. But mostly I just feel..."
"Tired," Shin finished. "I know." His voice carried something that might have been understanding. "It gets easier. That's the worst part."
They sat in silence after that, watching the stream flow past.
The library became his second home, if you could call the barracks a home.
After training, after missions, during the rare hours he wasn't actively working to make his body stronger, Tatsuya read. Jutsu theory. Elemental transformation. The history of the great clans and their techniques. Medical ninjutsu texts that were technically restricted but somehow found their way to shelves accessible to any shinobi with a valid ID.
He read about the chakra scalpel first.
The concept was elegant. Chakra emitted in a thin, concentrated blade, capable of severing tissue without physical contact. Medical applications were obvious: surgery without incisions, precise cutting in areas too delicate for conventional tools. The technique required exceptional control and a deep understanding of anatomy.
He had the anatomy knowledge. The control was coming along.
What the texts didn't emphasize, what he had to infer from careful reading between the lines, were the combat applications. A blade that couldn't be blocked. Cuts that appeared without visible cause. The ability to sever tendons, arteries, nerve clusters with a gesture.
Lethal. The word surfaced unbidden. In the right hands, absolutely lethal.
He practiced the emission pattern in his barracks room, late at night when no one was watching. Not the full technique, that required more control than he had, but the foundation. Concentrating chakra at his fingertips, shaping it into something thin and sharp. Most nights he managed nothing more than a faint glow. Occasionally, the edge was keen enough to leave marks on wood.
Progress. Slow, inadequate progress.
But it was something.
The elemental affinity test came in week eleven.
"Standard procedure," Yamada explained, passing out slips of paper to the assembled genin. "Channel chakra into the paper. It will react according to your nature."
Tatsuya had read about this. Fire crinkled and burned. Water dampened. Earth crumbled. Lightning wrinkled. Wind split. Most shinobi had one primary affinity; some had two. Complete elemental mastery was theoretically possible but practically insane, the effort required to master a non-affinity element was five to ten times greater than for your natural type.
He channeled chakra into his paper.
It crinkled. Then caught fire, burning from the center outward until nothing remained but ash in his palm.
"Fire," Yamada noted, making a mark on his roster. "Strong expression. You'll start with basic flame manipulation exercises."
Fire. The element of passion and destruction, if you believed the philosophical nonsense. The element of the Uchiha clan, if you paid attention to history.
Tatsuya brushed the ash from his hands and said nothing.
But that night, in his barracks room, he pulled out his coded journal and added a new entry:
Fire affinity. Strong. Good, it's common here, means training resources exist. Add to the list.
Below it:
Dreams again. The woman with dark hair. She's saying something but I can't hear the words. What was she trying to tell me?
He stared at the questions for a long time before closing the journal and hiding it away.
He met Might Duy on a Tuesday evening.
The man was practicing in a training ground that most shinobi avoided, a rocky area near the village's eastern edge, inconvenient to reach and lacking the amenities of the main facilities. Tatsuya had found it by accident, looking for somewhere private to work on water-walking without an audience for his failures.
What he found instead was a figure moving through taijutsu forms in the dying light.
At first glance, the man seemed unremarkable. Average height, bowl-cut hair gone grey at the temples, wearing a faded green jumpsuit that had seen better decades. His movements were basic, Academy-level kata, the kind of thing children learned in their first year of training.
Tatsuya almost dismissed him. Almost turned around to find somewhere else.
Then he looked closer.
The surgeon's eye caught details that casual observation missed. The way the man's muscles moved under his skin—not straining, not working, simply flowing through motions that should have required effort. The precision of his footwork, each step landing exactly where it needed to despite appearing almost careless. The economy of energy expenditure that suggested years—decades—of refinement.
This man moved like water. Like breath. Like something that had transcended the need for conscious thought.
Tatsuya approached cautiously.
The man noticed him immediately—of course he did—but continued his forms without interruption. Only when he reached a natural stopping point did he turn, and his face split into a smile so genuine it was almost startling.
"A visitor! Welcome, welcome! Don't see many young shinobi out this way." His voice was warm, enthusiastic, completely at odds with the discipline Tatsuya had just witnessed. "Training alone? Admirable dedication! The flames of youth burn brightly in you!"
Flames of youth. Tatsuya blinked. "I was looking for a quiet place to practice. I didn't mean to interrupt."
"No interruption! Training is always better with company." The man dropped into an exaggerated ready stance. "I am Might Duy, Eternal Genin of Konohagakure! What is your name, young shinobi?"
Eternal Genin. The phrase clicked into place. He'd heard it whispered in the reserve pool, mocking references to the failure who'd been stuck at the lowest rank for over two decades. A joke. A cautionary tale about what happened when you lacked talent.
But what Tatsuya had just witnessed wasn't talentless. It was something else entirely.
"Tatsuya Meguri," he said carefully. "Reserve pool."
"Ah! The survivors of the system!" Duy's smile didn't waver. "Many great shinobi have risen from the reserve pool. Never underestimate the value of adversity in forging strength!"
Platitudes. But delivered with such earnest conviction that they almost sounded sincere.
"Your taijutsu," Tatsuya said, deciding on directness. "What you were practicing. That wasn't Academy standard."
Something flickered in Duy's expression. The smile remained, but his eyes sharpened, a brief glimpse of the person beneath the performance.
"Oh? What makes you say that?"
"Efficiency. Your movements look basic, but there's no wasted energy. Every motion serves a purpose." Tatsuya chose his next words carefully. "I've seen enough combat to know the difference between someone practicing forms and someone who's internalized them completely."
The silence stretched. Duy's cheerful mask held steady, but Tatsuya could feel assessment in his gaze.
"You have good eyes, Tatsuya-kun," Duy said finally. His voice was quieter now, the enthusiasm dialed back. "Better than most. What are you really asking?"
"I want to learn." Simple. Direct. "My taijutsu is decent. I need it to be more than that. You know something about how to get there."
"Many instructors could teach you—"
"Many instructors teach the standard curriculum. You're doing something different." Tatsuya met his eyes. "I don't need different explained. I just need to know it's possible."
Another silence. Then Duy laughed—a genuine sound, surprised and pleased.
"You're an interesting one, Tatsuya-kun. Most people look at me and see a failure. Twenty years at genin rank, hard to argue with that evidence, yes?" He settled into a cross-legged seat on a nearby rock, gesturing for Tatsuya to join him. "But let me ask you something. What do you think makes a shinobi strong?"
"Chakra. Techniques. Speed. Power." The obvious answers.
"The obvious answers." Duy nodded. "And all true, to a point. But let me tell you something, young shinobi. I have no talent for ninjutsu. None at all. My chakra control is adequate at best; my reserves are below average. By every standard metric, I am exactly what people say—a failure."
He held up one finger.
"But the body itself is capable of extraordinary things. Strength that has nothing to do with chakra. Speed that comes from physical refinement, not energy manipulation. The human form, pushed to its absolute limits and beyond—that is a power that cannot be copied by any dojutsu, cannot be sealed by any technique."
"The Eight Gates," Tatsuya said quietly.
Duy went still.
"Where did you hear that name?"
"The library. Fragmentary references in old tactical reports." Partial truth. The real source was memory, his nephew's enthusiastic descriptions of Lee and Guy's impossible feats. "A kinjutsu that releases the body's natural limiters. Theoretically capable of granting power beyond Kage level."
"Theoretically." Duy's voice was neutral. "And practically, it destroys the user. The Eighth Gate—the Gate of Death—grants power beyond imagination, but the price is exactly what the name suggests."
"But the earlier Gates..."
"Are survivable. With training. With preparation. With years of conditioning the body to handle forces it was never meant to withstand." Duy studied him with new intensity. "Why are you interested in this, Tatsuya-kun? Most shinobi, when they learn about the Eight Gates, are sensible enough to pursue other paths."
Because I'm going to need every advantage I can get. Because there are things coming that will require more than adequate. Because I woke up in a world where children fight monsters, and I refuse to be helpless.
What he said was: "Because I don't have special bloodlines or clan techniques. What I have is this body and the willingness to work. If there's a path to strength that doesn't require gifts I wasn't born with, I want to know about it."
Duy was silent for a long moment.
"The Eight Gates are not something to pursue lightly," he said finally. "The training is brutal. The risks are significant. And even if you master them, using them carries costs that accumulate over time."
"I understand."
"You don't. Not really. But..." Duy's smile returned, smaller than before but more genuine. "You have potential, Tatsuya-kun. Good instincts. The right kind of stubbornness." He stood, brushing off his jumpsuit. "I can't teach you the Gates. Not yet, you're not ready, and I'm not sure I'm ready to teach. But I can help you build the foundation. Physical conditioning. Body refinement. The prerequisites that would make such training possible, someday."
"I'll take whatever you're willing to offer."
"Then come back tomorrow evening. Same time, same place. And be prepared to work harder than you've ever worked before."