A few years passed.

A boy was staring at a training dummy.

He carried a pink sheathed sword in his right hand, while his left hand was only a few centimeters away from the grip.

His posture was slightly bent forward.

Suddenly he disappeared and appeared behind the dummy.

The sword was slightly unsheathed, and when he moved his right hand so that it could glide back fully into the sheath, a clean-cut appeared on the dummy's neck.

'I finally mastered a basic iaijutsu-technique...anyway I should get going now or I will be late'

 

The day the village's children enroll at the academy as a special one.

It signifies not only honor, but it's also seen as a turning point in most of the children's lives.

Because of that, for this special occasion, the Hokage himself is giving a speech.

It is a grand speech, which ignites the hearts of the children while also letting the present adults reminisce of the past when it was their enrollment day.

But one boy rolled his eyes and looked like he was bored to death.

'Does he really need to make his speech so long...anyway it looks like other than Tenten I only recognize Neji and Lee here... '

It wasn't Eijis enrollment...It was Tenten's.

So he stood next to her and her parents while looking at the ones he recognized.

Neji had a stern and unhappy look.

He was accompanied by a random Hyuga which was probably from the branch house.

'It looks like his father already died'

Next, he looked towards Lee.

'Well, he still has a normal haircut...anyway, even though it's boring here, I finally have the opportunity to find out Tenten's family name!'

Every time he asked her to finally tell it, she would always blush and say that it's too early for him to know and he should wait until she is ready.

His plan for today is to wait for an opportunity where he can just ask one of her parents.

After the Hokage finally finished his speech, all the formalities were finished, so a celebrating atmosphere erupted.

The parents would congratulate their own children and children from their friends.

"Tenten, congratulations! As your father, I can't be more proud of you that you choose the noble path to protect the village!"

"Congratulations, Tenten!"

"Thanks, mum and dad!"

She then looked at the Eiji who stood beside her.

After noticing her gaze he said: " To be honest, Enrolling isn't really worth celebrating since they would probably take even someone who sits in a wheelchair as long he spouts Fire of Will nonsense."

"..."

"I'm just joking, anyway congratulations, I have a gift for you"

He pulled out a kunai which was obviously specially made since it had beautiful markings and the characters 'Heaven, heaven' which means Tenten.

"..."

"What? You are still not satisfied? Just so you know, I used all my money for it, so I can't buy you, sweets."

"No, that's not it. Lord Hokage is behind you and heard what you said..."

"Hahaha, I have to admit, this was a great joke. I'm pleased that there are children in the village with a great sense of humor. By the way congratulations on your enrollment"

While Tenten was happy to be congratulated personally by the Hokage, Eiji was completely scared.

'Holy shit, where the hell did he jump out suddenly? Wasn't he giving his speech pretty far away from us? Shit, what do I say now?'

"Uhmm, good afternoon Lord Hokage?"

"Hahaha, good afternoon to you too. Even though it was a joke, there is some truth in the fact that the most important thing we are looking for in students is the Will of Fire. It's because it's even more important than ability and strength. After all, in times where your abilities aren't enough, it's the Will..."

After noticing that the Hokage will start a lengthy monologue about basically the same stuff he said in his speech, Eiji recovered from his shocked state and got bored fast, so he drifted with his thoughts away.

'So in a year, it will be my turn...

I can already use the shadow-clone jutsu even with my crippled hand since it's probably the easiest and plain hand seal and doesn't require precise finger movements to form.

When I told Hayate-sensei that I wanted to learn some iaijutsu, he told me that he doesn't have a lot of knowledge about that and that he would look, if there are any records in Konoha with some knowledge on iaijutsu.

Since he is a special Jonin, he just went to the Konoha Archive Library.

There he found some records of a former Konoha-Shinobi who traveled to the Land of Iron and who analyzed some of their iaijutsu techniques and wrote it down.

With my sensei's help, we could learn most of it, since there was only basic stuff recorded because the Shinobi wasn't taught anything there and all was just purely from his observations.

Sensei also told me, that I'm now pretty decent in kenjutsu overall.

Well, I could also see that when I sparred with Tenten...her parents noticed her talent in weaponry, so they started buying her a huge variety of weapons.

She basically can pick up any weapon for the first time and do decently with it.

Thank god, I can still beat her in swords duels, or else I would lose my pride as a swordsman!

Anyway, before I enroll, I need to master the Dance of the Crescent Moon, while starting to add my Wind chakra when I use the sword.

I don't think I will have the time to make progress with my chakra-acceleration till then though; this will probably have to wait till I'm in the academy and mastered everything else first.

"...and that is why the Will of Fire is the most important thing for the shinobis of our village, don't you agree?"

"Huh? Ah yes, yes, totally!"

When he looked beside him only he and the Hokage were still there, the rest already went home.

'No! I lost my chance to finally discover Tenten's family name!'