The exact details of the shinobi academy student curriculum are a closely-guarded secret known only to the Academy Headmaster, who usually also serves as the Sennin of the Main Branch of Kumogakure. What is known is that children undergo intensive training in all forms of warfare and are expected to master everything from hand-to-hand brawling to field command of entire armies. Simultaneously, they endure exposure to dangerous alchemical processes, absorption of mutagenic compounds, and neurophysiologic augmentation intended to speed and refine the development of their chakra systems, allowing them to utilize shinobi jutsu. The combination of these approaches makes academy students who survive their trials highly versatile and dangerous opponents against all adversaries they may encounter. The overall mortality rate is around ninety percent, with most deaths due to training mishaps, adverse pharmacologic reactions, surgical complications, and suicide.
Each fully-trained student ready for promotion to genin is for all practical purposes a mutant.
From Modern Shinobi Warfare by Sir Takagi Masao, Imperial Historian
The boy with dreadlocks could feel the bloodlust erupting from within as he faced the shadowy, hulking feline form in front of him. A non-shinobi boy his age would have been frozen in place shitting his drawers in fear at such a sight, but not Keiji. Whether such a reaction was an inherited trait native to a long line of shinobi before him, or whether it was due to the brutal conditioning he had received all of his academy years, it mattered not, for the result was the same. His chakra system had developed for years with the sole purpose of violent action, and his kunai flew straight and true. With a disgusting squishing sound, the metal blade sank into the Nian’s eye, causing it to roar in anger and pain. Giant pink gobs of jelly-like vitreous humor cascaded to the floor.
Meanwhile, normal girls wore camisoles under their festival dress, but Kaoru was a true Tier One Operator and wore a full tactical loadout under her yukata. She immediately sprang into action, diving in and swooping up the little boy in a flash despite the tears in her eyes. (But were they tears of joy?)
“Don’t cry, onee-san, you saved me,” gasped the first-year as she gently laid him down in another room. “I thought that lion-thing was going to eat me for sure. I’ll never forget you! In fact, one day I’ll marry you for sure!” he said, giving her a thumbs-up before she put the final touches on the impromptu shelter she had constructed for him. An ignorant observer might have scoffed at Kaoru’s idea of placing the rescued student behind a makeshift barrier of furniture and blankets, as such a structure offered only token resistance to a dedicated foe. However, the brilliance of her plan was that it tapped into a fundamental truth about kids of all ages; they loved blanket forts. The child, although physically as vulnerable as before, would both stay silent inside the darkened shelter as well as resist the urge to peek outside or otherwise make himself known to the creature outside.
As Shisou and Keiji ran to the beast’s sides to prepare for an attack, it swept one of its massive paws in front of it in a gigantic arc, pinning Shisou against a wall. The shinobi boy was in trouble now – a feline’s normal behavior would be to attempt to break his neck by tossing him around if it could. Suddenly, a hail of shuriken slammed into its exposed arm, thrown by Hikari. The sound it made was an unnerving cross between a yelp and a roar, and it withdrew the injured extremity in response, letting Shisou fall to the ground. Angered, it shot out a clawed lunge from its hindlegs to punish her. After narrowly avoiding the swipe by rushing up the wall, she bounded away, landing a kick directly in its flank and causing it to crash to the ground, obliterating a wooden wall in its way.
Kahako’s observation was right – she was by no means unarmed. Her body and mind were weapons, sharpened under Headmaster Souseiki’s merciless, blood-lubricated grindstone until they formed a perfect edge; hardened to penetrate armor and rend flesh, and yet flexible so as not to shatter when cleaving bone. With a chakra-infused leap, she propelled herself toward the fallen beast, cratering the wooden floor in her wake. A rush of warm, pink fluid that spattered across her face was her reward as the damaged kunai sunk into the creature’s flank. As she attempted to move away for her next strike, however, the Nian opened an extra set of eyes and shot a paw out at her. Claws wrapped around her body and the creature pulled her forward. Kahako resisted the urge to fall unconscious, but now faced the impossibly cavernous open maw of the creature. She barely had time to marvel at the size of the opening before she was suddenly tossed forward into the moist, cocoa-scented darkness and the creature’s jaws slammed shut.
The Nian is injured – one of its eyes has been put out, its internal organs are damaged, and it has a kunai stuck deeply in its flank. Hikari and Keiji are fine, and Shisou is lightly injured.
Kahako has been swallowed whole, and her fate is unknown to the rest of the students. She is still alive, however, and is trapped inside the creature’s gullet where she is being encased in chocolate.
