5: Talent

The second practice field was cluttered with wooden targets, painted bullseyes, training posts, and straw dummies arranged in rough rows across the grass.

The students gathered in a loose cluster while Iruka crouched a short distance away, unfurling a scroll across the ground. The scroll was covered in dense, interlocking seals — a large character for tools at the center. He pressed one palm flat against it, brought two fingers together on his other hand, and a burst of white smoke bloomed and thinned. A wooden crate sat on the ground where there had been nothing a moment before.

Shin watched it happen. He’d seen jutsu only a handful of times, and it still didn’t feel real — the way something could come from nothing. Yesterday’s chakra lesson had been the same. He hadn’t known that kind of energy existed inside a person’s body.

Iruka flipped the lid open. Inside, packed in neat rows, were iron kunai and shuriken.

Those, at least, Shin recognized.

“All right.” Iruka straightened, holding one of each. “Quick rundown.”

He turned the kunai toward the class. “These two are the most common tools a shinobi carries. Every one of you will need to master both.”

“This is a kunai.” He raised it — a weapon shaped roughly like a short knife, with a ring at the base of the handle. “You can use it in close combat as a short blade. Two grips: forward and reverse. Reverse is more common — blade pointing down, ring toward you. The ring’s a finger guard. Index finger works best in a fight.” He flicked it into a spin between his fingers, smooth and easy, and half the class leaned forward without realizing it.

“For throwing.” He stopped the spin. “Kunai are harder to throw than shuriken — no rotation, purely linear. The tradeoff is stopping power. A well-placed kunai hits harder.” He snapped his arm forward. The kunai left his hand with a sharp whip of air and buried itself dead center in a target post twenty feet away. “You can hook your middle finger through the ring, or grip the handle end. Either works.”

He picked up the shuriken next — four-pointed, flat, balanced. “This one’s for throwing only. But in the air, it’s far more versatile than the kunai. Watch.” He released it with a wide, sweeping motion. The shuriken spun in a clean arc and bit into a different post at an angle. “Rotation means you can adjust approach angle. That’s the kunai’s weakness — straight line, no curve. Shuriken compensates.”

“Standard shuriken aren’t heavy enough to be decisive on their own. Supplemental weapon. Support role.” He paused. “There are specialized variants — custom kunai, specialized shuriken — but those usually pair with specific jutsu. We’ll get there.”

He scanned the group. “Who’s used these before?”

Hands went up — a decent number. Kiba’s shot up fastest and highest, as if he’d been holding it there in reserve the whole time.

“Good.” Iruka nodded. “Come up. Show the others what you’ve got.”

The group moved forward. Those who hadn’t raised their hands watched with badly concealed envy.

“Who’s first?”

“Me!” Kiba was already stepping into the open space, practically bouncing.

“Go ahead.”

The others gave him room. Kiba grabbed a shuriken, and something shifted in his expression — the loose grin pulled tight, replaced by something he was clearly trying to make look intense and effortless at the same time.

He exhaled. Threw.

Thwack.

Dead center.

The grin came back.

“Nice.” Iruka gave a single approving nod. “Kunai?”

The grin flickered. Kiba’s posture shifted — just slightly, the way someone shifts when a question they were hoping to avoid gets asked directly.

Shin watched him. So that’s the weak spot.

“Who said I can’t?” Kiba snatched up a kunai and planted his feet.

Thwack.

The kunai caught the outer ring of the target. Not terrible. Not great.

Kiba’s jaw tightened.

“Good work.” Iruka’s smile didn’t waver. That, at least, seemed to take some of the edge off. Kiba walked back and planted himself next to Shin, looking aggressively pleased with himself.

Shin said nothing.

Kiba glanced at him.

“You were great,” Shin said.

“Hmph.” Kiba lifted his chin and stared at the sky with the expression of someone who has decided not to acknowledge your existence.

Shin let it go.

The others went next. Ino stepped up and made it look clean — both kunai and shuriken, both bullseyes. Kiba’s eye twitched. Then came Shikamaru, Shino, Hinata, and Choji, each demonstrating their throws. Even Hinata, who held her kunai with both hands like it might bite her, landed center. Choji was the only one who came up short, and just barely.

Kiba stared at the targets with narrowed eyes. “Damn it,” he muttered under his breath, then lower: “Should’ve listened when Mom told me to practice.“

“Don’t worry about it,” Shin said. “You did well. And there are plenty of people here who’ve never thrown one at all. Like me.”

Kiba looked at him sideways. The tension in his shoulders eased, just a little. “…If you actually want to learn, my mom could show you sometime. You could come by and ask her.”

Shin smiled faintly.

“Sasuke.” Iruka spoke toward the quiet edge of the group — toward the one dark-haired boy who hadn’t gone yet, despite being among those who’d raised their hand. “Want to take a turn?”

Sasuke didn’t answer. He just walked forward.

He picked up four shuriken, one in each hand — two fingers, two fingers, balanced. He turned to face the target posts. His posture dropped slightly, knees bent.

He threw.

Snap-snap-snap-snap.

Four posts. Four shuriken. Vertical line, perfectly straight, each one sunk in to the same depth.

Dead silence behind him.

Then it broke.

“Whoa—“

“Sasuke-kun, that was incredible!“

“Sasuke!“

The fan section of the class fully lost it. Shin watched the whole thing with detached curiosity. They really do start young here.

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“Right? Right?!” Ino grabbed Sakura’s arm. “Isn’t he amazing?”

Sakura didn’t answer. She was staring at the posts.

That’s the Uchiha, Iruka thought, watching Sasuke return to the group with the same flat expression he’d had before throwing. That’s what it looks like.

“Unbelievable.” Iruka shook his head, and meant it. “You can skip the kunai.”

Sasuke said nothing. He stepped back into line.

“Tch. What’s so impressive about that?” A voice cut through the noise — too loud, too confident, too deliberately placed.

Everyone turned.

Naruto stood with his arms crossed, goggles pushed up his forehead, doing his best impression of someone completely unimpressed. “I could do that easy.”

The fan section did not receive this well.

“Who does he think he is—”

“He’s not even cute—“

Naruto walked up anyway, grabbed four shuriken, and mirrored Sasuke’s stance with painful accuracy. Same footwork. Same grip. He’d clearly been watching.

Wait, Shin thought, watching him settle into position. He actually looks like he knows what he’s doing.

Iruka squinted.

Naruto threw.

Whoosh.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

Three hits.

Not on the target posts.

Iruka had somehow, in the span of half a second, twisted his entire body sideways against a nearby tree — back flat to the bark, arms in, torso curved in a full-body contortion. Three shuriken were buried in the wood around him, framing his outline.

He hadn’t been fast enough to dodge the fourth one.

Shin pressed a hand over his eyes.

The class erupted. It was the kind of laughter that happens when something is so wrong it becomes funny — helpless, falling-over laughter that Choji almost choked on.

“You absolute—” Iruka unpeeled himself from the tree and crossed the distance to Naruto in three steps. The smack landed on the back of Naruto’s head with a resounding crack. “Were you trying to kill me?!“

“It was an accident!” Naruto yelped, clutching his skull.

Another smack. “I said quiet.“

“Pfft,” Kiba wheezed, bent double. “I’m gonna die—“

“Idiot,” said Sasuke, flatly.

That landed. Naruto spun around. “What did you just—”

“Get back in line.” Iruka grabbed him by the collar. “You and I will have words later.“

Naruto, fuming and nursing his head, shuffled back.

Iruka straightened his vest, exhaled slowly through his nose, and turned to face the class.

“Right.” His voice was back to normal. Almost. “I’ll now demonstrate proper technique for everyone. We’ll go step by step.”

He looked out at the targets. Then back at Naruto.