“Hiyah!”

Fuyuki watched on as a young boy, no older than the age of ten, threw a fist forward sloppily. He had put too much force into the punch and not enough into keeping balance. Coupled with the fact that he had been using an unstable stance in the first place, the boy ended up tipping forward and falling flat on his face. A chorus of laughter erupted out in the class as everyone turned to look at the fallen boy, chipping in their two cents to his mishap.

“That's enough, that's enough,” Fuyuki said. “Get back to practicing.”

The six students under Fuyuki's care gave him an unsatisfied and annoyed look as they turned away from him and went back to their own spars. They were practicing in pairs, polishing up their taijutsu abilities. Mitsuhide-sensei had at first been skeptical about putting the Academy students through an accelerated taijutsu program suggested by the council, but in wake of the coming war and dark times, it was really out of his hands whether or not to prepare the future generation for the darkness that may descend upon them, whether they liked it or not.

Fuyuki scrunched up his nose as the thought of weaponising these children came to mind. He wasn't a Konoha ninja, and was still unfamiliar with some of their ways, but he was sure that someone like Mitsuhide-sensei, the Thirteenth Hokage of Konoha, wouldn't allow such an inhumane thing to happen, right? He knew all ninja were tools and were meant to be used as weapons, but to actually plan on weaponising the future generation for the sake of the village disgusted him. Whoever had planned this wasn't a leader thinking for the good of his people; it was a dictator thinking for the bad of others.

Nevertheless, the motion had been passed. Fuyuki presumed it was just a test-run, to see how much Academy students of that young age could improve within such a short time. If it was a pass, if it bore satisfactory results, then it may be taken into consideration as a long-term policy. It really wasn't a choice of want or not in matters like this, with tales of Kirigakure burning coming with every merchant, and with each tale bearing worse news and more hint of despair than before. The once proud nation that had stood from the ashes of its defeat at the hands of a rogue Konoha ninja, Hao Uchiha, was once again being brought to its knees by a missing ninja who disagreed with the new administration and new Mizukage.

Fuyuki had undertaken this mission because he had wanted to help these children, as the mission was only categorised as 'training'. However, in the mission briefing, he had been urged to give his all into the mission, much more than he usually would while performing other missions, and this gave him the notion that, maybe these children didn't want to be trained, but were forced to be trained. He was all for the idea of strengthening them to ensure their survival, but powering them up for the sole purpose of having more disposable weapons at one's fingertips almost made him want to flash up his Kuroka weapon and cut something – anything – down.

He helped the fallen boy back to his feet, giving him a brief once-over to check for any major injuries. It was just protocol – no one would get any major injuries from a simple fall like that. And, if something like that was enough to deter them from trying, then they were in no way suited to becoming ninja, a profession which very likely would require them to kill while being on the very verge of death, much more so since they had to uphold the revered Will of Fire that had allowed Konoha to prosper despite overwhelming odds throughout the ages.

“Try it again,” Fuyuki ordered, trying to be as commanding as he could be.

The boy went back into the stance Fuyuki had shown him countless times. It was the basic Academy stance taught to students before they were expected to integrate their own preferred styles and change the flexible style into something more suited to their personal preferences, but that was at a much more advance level, possible Chunin. For now, the boy only had to memorise the basic stance that Fuyuki had picked up from the Academy instructors, and sadly to say, it seemed as if he was doing poorly at memorising it, much less utilising it, despite having been at it for two hours.

Fuyuki spared a quick glance at the other students. They were all lazy as hell. Only one pair was actually sparring with one another, and their stances were only somewhat better than the boy he was teaching. Another pair was in the ring, taunting and dancing with one another across the field, with no actual attacks embedded into any of their movements or any intent of improving, while the last pair was merely lying on the ground in boredom. One student of said pair was also already asleep.

“Hey!” Fuyuki snapped sternly as his head whipped to face the other three students. “Practice properly or you're not going home tonight!”

“You can't do that to us!” the boy on the floor said, before closing his eyes.

“Yeah, our parents will complain to the school, then you'll get in trouble!”

“Besides, you're not even a Konoha ninja! You can't order us around!”

Fuyuki closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself down. Having invested two hours into a group of misfits and failures had given him nothing but a bad headache. None of them were showing any progress, or even the desire to be better than what they were a couple of hours ago. He would have no problem teaching a completely hopeless idiot with the will to improve, but these kids didn't even seem to be suited for ordinary civil service, much less a career as demanding as that of a ninja.

And they had dared to insult him in that sense? He had put all of his sweat and blood into improving for the village of Konoha. Sure, while he wasn't a ninja of the village and while he wasn't born in the village, in what little time he had spent in the small place he had already seen it as part of his home, and he refused to let this boy badmouth him as such.

Word Count: 1104

“I will only give you one more chance. Get back to training. Now,” Fuyuki said, anger evident in his voice, yet tone properly controlled.

“And if I don't want to?” the kid taunted.

The children surrounding him got bolder and bolder, including the kid he had been personally tutoring. They stood up and began surrounding him, looks of annoyance at the horrid training session now all but lost from their faces, instead replaced by visages of sheer, grim glee, one that promised nothing but pain and suffering and revenge.

“Okay, this is really it. Final warning, people,” Fuyuki once more warned.

They did not take his warning to heart, and jumped him all at once, hoping to take him down in one strike. Fuyuki would admit their tactic was effective, as attacking from all sides ensured he had nowhere to run. However, they were forgetting the most essential aspect about Fuyuki – he was a ninja. Sure, he was still a rookie ninja, a Genin, but he was a ninja nonetheless, and he had seen things outside of the village during his travels that made these Genin literally look like chopped liver.

Fuyuki ran for the boy in front of him, before twisting sideways in an anticlockwise manner upon reaching him, spinning on his right heel. As he did so, the open palm of his right hand came into contact with the airborne boy's back, giving him further momentum forward. At the end of his spin, he delivered a soft axe kick to the boy's back. He wanted to teach the boy a lesson, not cripple him for life, as most deadly kicks to the backs often did. The boy was sent rocketing forward, before the other six boys collided with him and dropped to the ground in a heap.

“Listen. I'm a ninja. You're all Academy students,” Fuyuki began. “I'm pretty sure I can take you, even if it's seven on one.”

The kids didn't seem to believe him as they picked themselves off the heap on the ground and glared at him deeply, eyes boring holes in his head. In each of their eyes, Fuyuki saw hatred – hatred that was unmatched by any. They were beyond angry, beyond furious that an outsider like Fuyuki who had probably never stepped foot into Konoha before had managed to upstage them, even given their obvious difference in the level of skill. They were beyond mad that an outsider dared enter Konoha and make fun of its students. Doing something like that was like spitting on the hand that fed you, let alone biting it. It was an insult.

Of course, Fuyuki did not mean it that way. He did not mean it in that manner at all. For the village he had searched for for three years to accept him within their ranks under a probation, Fuyuki was already overjoyed. He would have no intention of belittling or insulting the village or its people in any manner. However, he did not view picking on these children as belittling the village. He believed that their laziness and unwillingness to improve for the sake of the village was an insult in and of itself, and being the Hokage's student had also instilled within him the desire to protect the village and its image. Picking on these kids was merely a way to show them how outmatched and outclassed they were.

The kids closed in on Fuyuki speedily once more, though he avoided their advances with ease and knocked all of them to the ground with little trouble, once more standing upright and exerting his superiority over them. Children such as that should not be exposed to such bullying, but in Fuyuki's mind his so-called ruthless 'bullying' was completely justified. If anyone were to approach him, he would explain himself that he was merely giving the kids punishment for refusing to follow his orders, despite his obvious command over them, as well as being in self-defense to their advances. After all, that wouldn't be a lie. Of course, he had somewhat provoked them by refusing to go the 'goody-goody' way, but he was sure that not only would he be disgusted in himself if he went soft, but so would Mitsuhide-sensei. And, such disgust at oneself was unacceptable. It led to self-doubt, which would further spiral into insecurity and furthermore hesitance, a trait which would lead to a ninja's death in battle. True, it was over-thinking things, but who cared. So long as he was able to teach the kids a lesson, he would be able to eat with a calm stomach and sleep at night without nightmares.

“Listen here, kids,” he started. “I'm going to give you kids one more chance to give up. When I say go, I want all of you to run out that door and go back to your sensei, and apologise to him for whatever you've put me through, and I want it done ASAP. If you don't know what that means, which should be little surprise considering how you seem to still not grasp that Academy students and Genin have far too large a gap to be covered, a gap called age and experience, then ASAP means as soon as possible, which, to make it even simpler, is immediately after I say go. Got it?”

The leading kid, the one who had spoken back to Fuyuki rudely, got up and yelled. “I'll make you pay for that!”

Fuyuki sighed. It seemed too much like something out of a drama novel, though the positions were pretty reversed. Normally, the bully was the one who said that after he was shown up. Fuyuki saw that the other kids were also standing back up, possibly ready to go another one-sided round in which they would no doubt get their butts handed to them once more. Fuyuki, however, had no such desire to play around. He had not the luxury of time, and he would deal with all of them now. They needed to learn the difference in the age gap. What better way to do that than demonstrating elemental manipulation, of course?

“Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!” Fuyuki yelled, bringing his hand back and pushing it forwards with force.

A large burst of wind shot from behind him, hitting all seven children and causing them to fly back, hitting the wall before dropping. They got up shakily, not from the pain as Fuyuki had used little energy, but from the fear of the man in front of them, said emotion now clearly evident on their faces.

“Go.”

They could not have been out of the room quicker.

Fuyuki smiled. They would be back for the afternoon session. They always came back. And they would always be taught lessons. Always.

Word Count: 1150