Chapter 7: The Price of a Lesson
The morning passed in a blur of chakra theory and extraction exercises. The ninja instructor's dry voice explained the finer points of energy circulation, but Ragnar's focus was divided. A portion of his mind followed the lecture, cross-referencing it with his internal Haki senses. The rest was tuned like a finely calibrated instrument to the atmosphere of the room.
He felt the gaze long before he saw its source. It was a pointed, aggressive pressure against the edge of his newly heightened awareness—Observation Haki picking up on focused hostility. During a break, he turned his head casually. The owner of the gaze was a boy perhaps two years his senior. He had a sharp, angular face framed by a spiky, aggressive haircut, and on the back of his dark shirt was the impossible-to-miss emblem of a red and white fan.
Uchiha. The name hung in the air like a threat. Uchiha Tsuki.
The era was a harsh one. With the Second War looming, the Academy's structure was more fluid, more brutal. Upper and lower-year students often shared classes and training grounds. Early graduation was encouraged, a direct pipeline to fill the ranks of chunin squads or, for the exceptional and ruthless, the ranks of the Anbu—the Hokage's personal black-ops, a source of dark pride for every aspiring student. Figures like Kakashi, Itachi, Yamato… that was the path of the elite. Others, like Minato, would be plucked by a jounin sensei and honed in the coming war, forging their legends in blood and lightning. Ragnar's path was his own, a solitary grind away from the spotlight.
"Ragnar, are you alright?" Kushina whispered from beside him, her voice tight with a worry she couldn't fully hide. She'd connected the dots. This trouble was because of her.
"Don't worry," he replied, his voice low and even. His caution was a survival mechanism, not cowardice. A challenge, once issued, had to be met. To back down now would mark him as prey, inviting more predators. With the Three Haki as his unseen arsenal, even the famed Uchiha malice could be broken.
The afternoon sun beat down on the Academy's main training field. The air buzzed with excited chatter as students paired off for the scheduled practical combat session. The shuriken and kunai were training models, their edges blunt, but they could still bruise, cut, and break bones.
The matches began, a series of clumsy clashes and shouted techniques. Ragnar watched with detached analysis, mentally noting openings, predicting movements with his enhanced senses.
Then, the interruption.
"Teacher!" Uchiha Tsuki's voice cut through the noise, arrogant and clear. He stepped forward from the cluster of older students. "I wish to challenge Ragnar."
A murmur rippled through the crowd. The ninja instructor, a chunin with weary eyes, frowned. "Uchiha, you are a year ahead of Ragnar. You entered the Academy earlier. Where is the merit in such a challenge?"
Every eye turned to them. Uchiha Tsuki wasn't a top genius like Minato, but he was strong, already whispered to be at genin level, with the Sharingan's potential lurking behind his proud eyes. Ragnar was the three-month-old refugee, the outsider. This was naked bullying.
The reactions around them were a microcosm of the shinobi world's cold calculus: sneers, indifferent stares, a few pitying glances, but no one spoke up. In this era, children were soldiers in waiting. Compassion was a luxury.
"Don't you think this is just bullying?" Kushina couldn't stay silent. She pushed to the front, her small fists clenched, her red hair a banner of defiance.
"Ragnar," Tsuki sneered, ignoring her completely, his eyes locked on his target. "It's fine if you refuse. You can just hide behind a girl. But then you'd prove you don't have the makings of a shinobi."
"Enough!" the instructor barked, his voice cracking like a whip. He looked at Ragnar, his expression unreadable. "Ragnar. This is a voluntary exercise. The choice is yours."
Ragnar stepped forward, his movements calm, deliberate. The chatter died. "Thank you, sensei. I accept the challenge."
"Have you considered this?" the instructor asked, a strange glint in his eye. He was seeing not bravado, but a chilling calm. It was intriguing, and tragic. The Uchiha were a proud, vicious clan. They didn't know restraint.
"I have," Ragnar said, his voice carrying easily in the sudden quiet.
"Ragnar!" Kushina's plea was a soft, desperate sound.
Uchiha Tsuki's smirk widened into a victorious grin.
The students formed a wide circle, the dust of the training ground between them. The instructor stood at the periphery, his face a stone mask. "Remember, this is a spar. You will stop when I say. Begin!"
The moment the word left the instructor's lips, Uchiha Tsuki moved. His hands flashed to his pouches and emerged with two fistfuls of shuriken. With a fluid, practiced motion, he hurled them.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Eight black stars sliced through the air, not in a wild spray, but with deadly intent. Four aimed directly for Ragnar's center mass—throat, heart, stomach. The other four arced wide, cutting off potential paths of dodging or substitution. It was a classic, ruthless Uchiha throwing pattern, the kind that demanded the Sharingan's precision to execute and to evade.
A collective gasp went up. This wasn't a sparring opener; it was a meant-to-maim assault.
Ragnar didn't flinch. He didn't reach for a kunai. He didn't form a hand seal. He simply planted his feet, clenched his fists, and his eyes narrowed in focus.
"He's insane!"
"He's going to block them with his hands?!"
Even Minato's usually placid expression tightened with disbelief. The logical counters were evasion or replacement. Not this.
"Fool!" Uchiha Tsuki spat, confidence swelling. Country bumpkin. No concept of real ninja art.
Ragnar saw the trajectories not just with his eyes, but painted across his mind by Observation Haki. He saw the gaps, the slight variances in speed. There was an opening, but not for dodging. For meeting force with greater force.
Armament.
The command was silent, internal. A familiar, powerful surge answered. From his wrists down, his forearms and fists darkened instantly, transforming into gleaming, obsidian-black. The change was subtle in the bright sun, but the air around his fists seemed to warp and thicken.
He didn't swing wildly. He moved with economical, brutal precision. A slight pivot of the hips, a twist of the torso. His blackened fists became blurs, lashing out in short, devastating arcs.
CLANG! CLANG-CLANG! BANG!
The sounds were all wrong. They weren't the thwock of shuriken hitting wood or flesh, but the sharp, discordant shrieks of metal being violently deformed and repelled.
Ragnar's fists met the shuriken head-on. The first two were batted aside, sent spinning harmlessly into the dirt with deep dents in their centers. The next cluster he took on a crossing parry, his forearms like iron bars, deflecting them with sparks. One shuriken he caught a direct hit on its flat, the metal screaming as it crumpled like paper before falling, bent double.
In three seconds, it was over. The eight shuriken lay scattered around Ragnar's feet, some whole and dented, others twisted into useless shapes. Ragnar stood perfectly still in the center of the circle, his arms lowered. The black coating on his skin faded, leaving his hands bare and unmarked. Not a scratch. Not a drop of blood.
A profound, stunned silence blanketed the training field. The only sound was the faint tink of a broken shuriken blade settling in the dust.
Uchiha Tsuki's triumphant smirk had frozen, then shattered, leaving behind a mask of utter, bewildered shock. He stared at his useless weapons, then at Ragnar's impassive face, his brain struggling to process what his eyes had just seen.
Ragnar slowly unclenched his fists. He met Tsuki's gaze across the open space, his own eyes dark and depthless. He had said he would accept the challenge. The first lesson was delivered.
(End of Chapter)
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