The cool night breeze whistled through the mangrove, ruffling Duy’s hair.

He looked up to the sky, barely visible through the dense canopy. It was a full moon tonight.

The wind stagnated around him as a formless aura gushed out of him, causing his standard genin uniform to flutter.

The inhuman training… enduring the jeers, the mocking, the ostracization… it had all been for this day.

If he had any regrets, it would be being unable to see her one last time.

Unable to circulate chakra due to his non-existent meridians, he had always been seen as a disabled person.

As a child rescued from the smouldering ruins of his village at the tail end of the First Shinobi World War and brought to Konoha, the greatest ninja village, it should have been a charming tale of turning misfortune into a blessing.

In reality, it was the start of his nightmare.

Eager to repay the village which had taken him in and his benefactor who had brought him to it, he had enrolled himself for the Shinobi training course.

The initial testing had brought his deficiencies to light.

He had been ‘politely’ advised to aspire towards a different profession.

The headstrong child that he was, he had ignored their deterrence and thrown himself into the physical training required to master taijutsu, the only branch of services one didn’t need active chakra flow for.

Lacking a repository in the form of a dantian, his chakra overspread his entire body. This made him eminently suitable for practising the physical art which involved infusing the body with chakra to strengthen it.

The problem was, it was the only thing he could practise. Ninjutsu or genjutsu were beyond him.

The lack of circulating chakra also left him vulnerable to genjutsu.

Overall, he had too many glaring weaknesses for his excellence at the least popular of ninja arts to make him viable as an operating shinobi.

When the news of his benefactor’s demise at the hands of a Kiri squad had reached him, the flames of his desire for strength had burnt even more prosperously.

Refusing to relinquish hope and in search of more efficient methods of turning his efforts into strength, he had turned to the library.

In a village dedicated to churning out as many killers as possible, the first floor of the library, containing the basics of chakra utilization and cultivation had been de-archived to the public.

In the dustiest corner of the most unpopular shelf containing taijutsu scrolls, he had come across the technique which had given him hope.

An unabridged version of the basic technique that allowed a shinobi to rid himself of his limiters.

Considered too tedious and time-consuming to be practised to its completion for anyone who would get better returns by investing the time on ninjutsu or genjutsu, it was a technique that traded one’s lifespan for an instantaneous boost in physical power.

Insane amounts of body tempering were required in order to withstand said boosts.

For a person of his circumstances, it was the only choice.

Yet, due to it being a technique that had extremely serious repercussions for each use, he couldn’t reveal it as one of his capabilities to the village. Thus, he had been stuck at his rank of genin for his entire career.

‘The Eternal Genin’ was what they had mockingly dubbed him.

It was when he was training to extend his duration with the gates that he had met her.

She was a trainee genin, led astray in her search for an empty training ground.

His dedication and training intensity had attracted her and one thing led to the other and they were married soon after despite strong opposition from her parents.

In a village which laid great emphasis on eugenics and faced population shortage due to the perpetual wars, all strong ninja were encouraged to be as profligate as possible.

Women were indoctrinated with the concept that it was their duty to breed with the strongest men they could, as many times as they could and to invest their children into the war machine that was the Konoha Shinobi Forces.

There was even a provision where male ninja ranked chunin and above, without clans or bloodlines that were under the control of any families, were under an obligation to visit the brothel at least once a week.

The fact that Duy had been banned from visiting it spoke volumes about the discrimination. Not that he would have with the tigress at home.

Having retired after marriage, she faced the taunts and disparaging of her fellow villagers for marrying a disabled man such as him.

The relations with her parents had grown rocky. Yet, she supported him with heart and soul. It was because of her that he had the motivation to endure the gruelling training required to open the eight gates.

Things came to a head when Guy was born with malformed meridians. It was the first time she had cried in regret of their marriage.

That night, he had told her about his opening of the eight gates and the consequences of their use. She had cried harder knowing the depths of his sufferings in the pursuit of power.

The next morning, when her mother had come on a punitive expedition with ‘I told you so’ written all over her face, she had met her with a smile on her face.

It was time to repay her for making her endure the taunts of the villagers for all these years.

Come morning, she would be the widow of a martyr… the widow of a Hero of the Leaf.

All ninja burnt their candles at both ends. He was a firecracker, doomed to obscurity till his time came.

When it did, he would outshine them all.

He took in a deep breath, his powerful lungs inciting eddies in the air around him.

His time was now.