Their summer training had produced dividend after dividend, more than even Kusuri had predicted.
The plan's original purpose was to give each of them a solid foundation so it would be easier for them to learn new skills later on, but thanks to Iori's help, they managed much more.
He jumped in about once or twice a week and gave them valuable insight into their current training and what they should each focus on.
A major help to said insight was a gift he brought on the third day he came around.
Two slips of chakra paper.
His reason for bringing them was an overall disagreement with the structure of the academy's curriculum, which, in Kusuri's opinion, was rather fair.
The idea that someone could become a chunin before so much as learning what a Nature Affinity even is, was simply asinine.
Either way, the results showed Taga had a lightning affinity, and Nori had one for earth.
They also asked Kusuri if he already knew what his was, which he falsely answered with water.
He technically wasn't lying, as, according to his head library, Water Release was a component of his affinity towards blood, alongside Yang Release of all things.
Since he wasn't sure a Yang affinity was even a thing, he felt Water Release seemed the safest answer.
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At the end of their training, everyone's improvement was obvious.
In terms of taijutsu, Taga took the cake, having quickly surpassed his friends.
In ninjutsu, the crown still went to Kusuri, but Nori had rapidly improved in the field, closing his lead by a decent margin.
Kusuri, on the other hand, sank most of his time into improving his basic capabilities. As a result of that focus, he was the only one to actually figure out wall walking and had become far and away the best when it came to chakra control, and thus, chakra efficiency as well.
That combined with his improvements in physical fitness put him as something of a jack-of-all-trades.
Or, at least it would once the other two caught up.
Overall, the training had been a massive success and the three of them decided they would make it something of a yearly tradition for the rest of their schooling.
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Their second school year passed largely the same as the first.
They learned new techniques and subjects and lost quite a few classmates while they were at it.
Taijutsu and ninjutsu had become larger focuses of their curriculum, and shurikenjustu was finally introduced.
And their class - which he had learned originally numbered about 200 - was slowly whittled down further into a measly forty.
Those who remained had clearly started breaking off into small and large cliques, which seemed to somewhat self-separate when it came to talent. Not so much from a prepubescent form of classism, but simply from many of the students starting to figure out who would/wouldn't still be their classmates and forming their friend groups based on that.
Kusuri, Taga, and Nori mainly kept to themselves over this period. This isn't to say that they were particularly isolated, just that their friend group had already been long defined.
They continued to work, talk, and study together, roughly keeping pace with the other nine who graduated originally.
Then, after all was said and done, their second year passed them by.
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Their third year, unlike its predecessor, was quite the eventful one, especially for Kusuri.
That year marked the year Jun would enter the academy.
She followed him around nearly any time she could, and begged Kusuri, often successfully, to help her study to pass the thresholds.
Over the course of that year, Jun ended up spending quite a lot of time at Kusuri's house, who was often joined by Taga and Nori as the three studied right alongside her.
The constant time studying didn't only benefit Jun, however, it also gave serious benefit to Kusuri.
After the previous school year had been a near complete letdown in terms of progress, he decided he would devote as much time as he could to his scrolls.
Even with his renewed vigor, he doubted he'd be able to completely interpret the scrolls until his graduation, if not later.
By the end of the year, even with all that time spent studying, he only made it halfway through the scrolls. Although, that was not the only thing he had to show for his efforts.
To his own amazement, he had finally learned enough to make some simple techniques, information he decided to put to work almost immediately.
With the scrolls' main focus being blood release, there was more than enough information on it, water, and yang release to give himself some basic abilities prior to his graduation.
That, unfortunately, had to wait until the next year, as their third year had finally passed.
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One year, two years, then three years, and finally, their graduation arrived.
The swiftness with which it arrived not only surprised Kusuri but Taga and Nori as well.
Each of them had made huge leaps in their abilities over the past few years.
Taga had cemented himself as the close-range specialist of the group, which he paired with some lightning release to make him less of a one-trick pony.
Nori focused her efforts on mastering an array of jutsu, including both the ones they had all been taught at the academy, and a handful of earth release jutsu for both offense and defense.
Kusuri, on the other hand, had become the defacto skill monkey. He had picked up more techniques than the other two put together and massively improved his chakra control to maximize his efficiency. Combined with the jutsu he had either developed or reverse-engineered with his relentless studying, he was easily the most versatile of the group.
Unfortunately, to his own chagrin, he hadn't made the progress he thought he would when it came to the scrolls.
It turned out that extremely high-level theory was, in fact, rather hard for someone who wasn't even a genin to access.
Go figure.
It thankfully wasn't necessary for the jutsu he developed. He created a total of four, three of which were blood release, followed by a water release.
They took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to make, especially tears, as he realized he definitely couldn't show them off since the secret of his lineage needed to stay a secret, at least if he didn't want hunters trying to ice him the moment he left the village.
Thus, he had to stick with learning the remainder of his jutsu like some kind of normal person.
But finally, after a full six years at the academy, he was finally going to be a fully-fledged ninja.
An achievement made clear by the next announcement that left the mouth of Iruka Umino.
"Tagayasu Hatake, Nori Kato, and Kusuri Saiyō. You all will form Team 9."