Chapter One
The academy bell rang at dawn, and Hana Mizuki was already late. She vaulted over the canal wall with a grace that would have earned full marks in the agility assessment she was currently missing, landed on the opposite rooftop without breaking stride, and sprinted across the tile roofs of the merchant district with her academy scarf streaming behind her like a banner. Below, the village was waking — vendors setting up stalls, genin teams assembling for morning missions, and somewhere in the tower, her instructor was probably marking her absent for the third time this week.
She dropped into the academy courtyard through a gap in the perimeter barrier that no one had bothered to patch, a gap she had discovered at age eight and had been exploiting ever since. The courtyard was empty. The bell had stopped ringing. Through the classroom window, she could see her cohort already seated, and standing at the front of the room, holding a scroll with the unmistakable seal of the Village Council, was not their usual instructor but the Elder herself.
Hana pressed herself against the wall and listened. The Elder was reading names — team assignments for the graduating class. This was not supposed to happen for another month. Something had accelerated the timeline, and whatever it was had made the most powerful ninja in the village come to deliver the news personally. When the Elder read