In his simplistic room, consisting of a bed, a desk, and a large dresser, Ronin sat cross-legged, bare-chested, in the center of his bed, his eyes closed and deeply focused.
'The academy is starting soon. I need to make the most of the resources that will be available to me. I'll have to manage it well; I don't want to graduate too early, but being among the top performers means receiving the best possible resources…
It would be tempting to graduate early to be guided by a Jonin, but I'm not yet certain that I'm safe from potential elite forces recruiting young people against their will to brainwash them.
In concrete terms, I will try to gauge my level to be the best without having to graduate early,' Ronin planned, while meditating to better control his chakra.
Until now, he had been training without a real point of comparison. He had been pleasantly surprised to hear the medic-nin tell Saki that he was at the same level as the children from ninja clans in terms of chakra quantity.
As for his combat level, he could compare it to his former life. He estimated that he was about three-quarters of the level he had in his prime. Chakra truly made his physical development faster and easier.
What would take years and years of training and experience in terms of physical fitness in his world could be achieved in one or two years with chakra.
He planned to develop his Taijutsu at the academy by integrating it with combat sports and martial arts that he mastered. According to his analysis, he should be able to complete his repertoire of close combat techniques once he succeeded in merging Taijutsu with his combat sports.
The only area where he was behind compared to other geniuses his age was in jutsus as a whole. Due to various reasons, including the fact that his father couldn't provide him with any jutsus because he was fighting on the front lines and he was too young to have them while he was still there.
Ronin had grown very attached to Saki during the war. He provided her with a lot of emotional support and had really grown closer to her during the period when her husband was missed.
*Click–*
The sound of the door disturbed Ronin's meditation. He had guessed that it was Saki returning from her morning at the village gates.
As he descended the stairs, he exclaimed, "Good morning, mo–" before abruptly stopping upon seeing the person closely following Saki behind the door. While Jun's face still bore some traces of depressiveness, there was none now as he laid eyes on his son after two long years at the front lines.
"Hey, kiddo," he expressed with a tender yet weary voice, representing how much the war had affected him.
"Dad!" exclaimed Ronin, quickly descending the stairs and throwing himself into Jun's arms, which embraced him with a single arm. "What happened to your arm?!" he continued, quickly noticing that Jun was missing his right arm.
With a gaze filled with despair and anger, but maintaining a face that indicated tenderness, Jun replied with a slight smile, "A mean ninja from Konoha injured me, but don't worry, your father had the last word!"
'Jun, you're not a good liar...' thought Ronin, seeing his father's completely revealing look.
Jun had lost his arm when his team was ambushed by Konoha ninjas. He was angry not only because he had lost his arm but also because he had been forced to flee from three mere children! Who would have thought that Konoha's children were so fierce.
But even though he resented them, the anger would eventually dissipate. Jun had a good heart, and he had a broader perspective on things. He understood that these children were also just poor soldiers sent as cannon fodder.
He wanted to rest, but he knew that with the losses Iwa had suffered, he would have to return to missions quickly despite his missing arm. He could only let out a sigh in the face of this fate.
[Two weeks later] -
The Bushida family's life had returned to its normal course. Ronin continued training all day and even at night, while Saki and Jun made up for lost time.
Jun planned to retire in a few years to help Saki manage the tapestry business. With his missing arm, once the losses of ninjas were compensated, he intended to take a well-deserved retirement.
Today was Ronin's first day at the academy. He was quite excited to finally develop his range of techniques. During the past two weeks, he had stopped his physical training to focus on training the birthday gift his father hadn't been able to give him before.
It was a ninjutsu: Earth Release: Rock Shield. It was a very useful combat technique that involved lifting a piece of earth and using it as a shield.
He had studied and trained it for two weeks and had managed to perform it in just a few days. It was a fairly simple technique that posed no problem for someone who had trained their chakra for the past five years.
He was now training to perfect this technique: removing some hand signs, trying to optimize the flow of chakra…
In short, he had experimented extensively with this technique over the past two weeks and he was very happy to finally be able to test a ninjutsu.
Upon arriving at the academy, he saw many young children his age gathered in the courtyard, talking amongst themselves or patiently waiting while looking at the podium.
He recognized some children from various clans, including a child from the Bakuho clan. Ronin remembered this name because they were known for their mastery of the art of explosions, which would give rise to the future member of the Akatsuki: Deidara.
Shortly after Ronin arrived, the children fell silent as the Tsuchikage made his entrance, floating above the podium as usual. He was present to give his opening speech at the academy.
"Dear children, I am here today to wish you good luck in this first academic year. You, who form the foundation of our mountain, the village of Iwa, are our greatest asset for the future.
You are the future inheritors of the Will of Stone, brave Iwa ninjas who proudly represent our village. So I wanted to thank you for being here and once again wish you good luck," declared Onoki with a solemn and proud tone.
Many children had stars in their eyes upon hearing this declaration, completely buying into the flood of compliments sent by the Tsuchikage himself.
'A very effective way of motivation and manipulation, although they are still impressionable young children. Onoki is not even a tenth of the level of politicians in my former world,' thought Ronin, letting out a slight sigh.
With these words, the instructors gave instructions to the children. The tests to determine their level and therefore their class had begun.
'I'll have to perform well. I'd like to end up in the best class to benefit from as many resources as possible,' Ronin motivated himself, intending not to give his all right from the start but rather to observe the best and adapt to their levels if possible.
Of course, he could only adapt to a certain extent. He had never been able to truly compare himself to others, so he didn't know if he was on the same level as the children in his year or not.
The first test was simply a long race. Nothing too complicated for someone who had been training his physique for the past two years, but he was quite surprised by the number of future students who had failed to complete the race.
'Hm... I didn't expect that. It must be a side effect of the massive propaganda of the village to train new ninjas. Many people for little performance…'
The second test was simply an evaluation of chakra quantity. It was prioritized over chakra control because the instructors didn't really expect a young child to be advanced in chakra control.
Once again, Ronin believed he would be among the best since he had been meditating relentlessly every night to increase his chakra ever since he could feel it.
The final test was a small questionnaire to assess basic knowledge, mainly consisting of common sense questions and low academic level ones. Ronin believed the test was designed this way to have more people pass and, by extension, recruit more ninjas.
After this last test, the students were invited to go home and come back in two days to check the results and their assigned classes.
Not surprisingly, Ronin ended up in the best class. He had performed well during the long race, finishing in fourth position and staying within the top group.
However, there was a child from the Yugiwa clan who had surpassed everyone else by finishing the race several tens of minutes ahead. They belonged to a clan that had played a major role in the recent war and specialized in earth fusion techniques.
For the second test, however, Ronin was surprised to find himself ranked eleventh, with only children from renowned clans or shinobi families ahead of him.
'I see... Genetics create a much larger gap than I thought,' Ronin affirmed in his thoughts.
As for the written test, he obviously came in first. He was sure that the best would have a perfect score on this joke of a test. And he was right: he was tied for first place with six other recruits.
Ronin was thus assigned to Class 1, a class predominantly filled with children from clans and talented shinobi.
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A/N: New Chapter! I apologize for not being able to post a chapter yesterday, but I promise to post two chapters on Saturday. I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)