Today I was expected to enter the place where future shinobi would be trained. Having risen early in the morning, I quickly tidied myself up, ate a portion of noodles at Ichiraku to celebrate this event, and then went to the Academy building, the route to which I had found out in advance. Having joined a flock of children who had already split into groups, I stopped in proud solitude and stood waiting for a pompous speech to be delivered to us, which did not take long to come.
The Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, came especially for us, future genin. By the way, a rather old grandpa. The image from the anime was observed, but here his appearance was somewhat more mature; perhaps he looked all of eighty years old, thanks to the fact that this was not animation but a real person, although they were similar. His voice was quite sonorous, and the lecture this time was quite short—apparently, he was in a hurry somewhere. Having finished speaking, the Hokage nodded for the teachers to lead us into the academy building, where we were rather quickly divided into three groups.
Perhaps there was some justification for this, but out of these three, I ended up in the canon one. I wonder what distinguished me so much. In my group, all the future heroes of this universe were easily guessed. It was strange, but Sakura was not in it, apparently. So that the teams would be divided into threes, they decided not to take her, preferring me in their choice. I wonder if she really has even less chakra than me. However, it does not matter. I hope she will find a place for herself in another group, and I did not harm her too much with my appearance.
It is unlikely that she will become a student of the Fifth, well, certainly not through connections, like the teammate of the last of the Uchiha and Uzumaki. I am quite indifferent to this girl; I will not regret it much if she does not rise as high as in the canon. Let her sit and have fun here. Meanwhile, our class teacher entered, easily recognizable by the characteristic scar on his nose.
"Welcome everyone to the Ninja Academy! My name is Umino Iruka. And I will be your class teacher and main teacher for the entire duration of your studies. Our group is the first, so look at the schedule specifically for it."
Glad that the children were silent and listening, our young teacher continued:
"Studying at the Academy usually lasts five years, but it happens that some children finish the main courses earlier."
Iruka paused for a moment before going into further explanations. -
"This year, we are just preparing to embark on the path of the shinobi and will study the countries around us, as well as ours—the Land of Fire and its cities. We will also begin the first courses of such subjects as calligraphy, mathematics, geometry, the history of the shinobi, and finally, at the end of the year, we will begin to study the theory of chakra. This is what allows a person to become a shinobi. We'll also start training our bodies; otherwise, you won't be able to become ninjas."
Iruka shook his head. "In the second year of study, in addition to the previous subjects, we will learn bukijutsu, the art of throwing various weapons. Otherwise, we will consolidate what we have already covered in old subjects and also study new topics that will be very important in the art of shinobi."
Gradually, attention in the class began to wane. The clanless children of the townspeople were not ready for such a long lecture; they lacked perseverance. As the students started to murmur their dissatisfaction amongst each other, Iruka made no effort to hide his irritation.
"Stop the noise!"
Iruka suddenly barked, and the children fell silent in fear.
"If you are not paying attention yourself, then this is no reason to prevent others from listening!" Taking a moment to calm down, Iruka resumed his lesson.
"And now let's continue... in the third year of study, we will already be physically developed enough, so in addition to physical training lessons, you will begin to study taijutsu, the art of hand-to-hand combat. Sparring will be held between students. In addition, the practical use of the chakra theory that you will learn over the previous two years will soon begin."
The teacher knocked on the table, feeling that the children were getting distracted again. But what can you expect from a bunch of seven-year-olds?
"In the fourth year of training, the workload will be seriously increased. In addition to the previous subjects, we will begin to study ninjutsu, the main art of shinobi, namely: techniques based on the use of chakra. We will also study a short course in protection against genjutsu, the subtle art of illusions that can deceive our senses. Additionally, everyone can study the technique of sealing and unsealing special scrolls for various shinobi equipment. These are the basics of the art of working with seals, also called fuinjutsu."
Iruka took a deep breath as the lecture was coming to its logical conclusion.
"In the last, fifth year of training, survival courses await us: we will learn to live in the wild, which often accompany the craft of shinobi, and it is also this year that you will have exams on everything you have learned during the Ninja Academy course. And now a few organizational points: The schedule will be posted here, in this classroom. The first lesson is tomorrow, so bring all your writing supplies. Thank you for your attention. Have a nice day, everyone; see you tomorrow."
Iruka waved to the children, who, without even listening to him to the end, dumped out of the classroom. Nothing unusual, however. Only the children from various clans and a few conscientious children remained. By the way, Naruto was not on this list.
"Sensei," I raised my hand. "I know that there is a library at the academy. I wanted to ask how to get there, and do I need a pass to get there?"
"Already striving for knowledge?" Iruka rubbed the back of his head. "Well, that's commendable. The library is in the neighboring wing of the building; I'll take you there."
I nodded. It seems that we got a very good teacher. In the meantime, the bell rang, and the remaining children, having asked a couple of meaningless questions, bowed out in the same way. The only sensible question was asked, oddly enough, by Hinata Hyuga. I recognized her by her distinctive hairstyle and eyes. Well, and also by the way she asked the question:
"S-sorry," She drew Iruka's attention to herself. He smiled kindly, but he was already a little mentally drained. "Will we have many other teachers? I thought... you wouldn't be the only one teaching us, would you?"
The girl was embarrassed and hesitated, but she managed to express her thoughts.
"Oh, I completely forgot," Iruka scratched the back of his head once again and smiled good-naturedly. "But never mind, I'll tell the other students another time... As I already said, I am your main teacher. I will teach you chakra theory, history, as well as geography, geometry, and algebra. For any practical classes outside, you will have a separate teacher. Otherwise, I will always be with you, except for a couple of subjects that I simply won't be able to teach myself."
Iruka pointedly glanced at his watch, as if saying that the audience should already be over. "Well, guys, do you have any more questions? Sorry, I'm a little tired today... but don't worry, if you don't manage to find out something today, then tomorrow or any other day you can come ask me for assistance.
We all agreed to ask the questions another time and then took our leave, allowing our teacher to finally sigh in relief. He must have lost his voice today, poor thing. Of course, I had never been a teacher, but I understood perfectly well what a difficult task it was to keep track of a whole bunch of seven-year-olds. He had some tough days ahead of him. In principle, as I already said, I liked the teacher. Kind, but strict with the bullies, and also seemed like an ordinary person. A truly ordinary person, as far as it is possible for a shinobi. Of course, this could all be a mask, but in reality, I don't think so. I think he really likes his job, and he behaves naturally. Even if he reports personally to the Hokage, this is no reason to treat him with any bias.
***
I liked my first real day at the academy. After a short introduction, where most of the students asked questions, Iruka gave a very interesting history lesson, in which we began to go through the legends of the Sage of the Six Paths and other undocumented personalities. Apparently, the plan for this subject implied going through it from the very beginning of more or less known events. Iruka told the story interestingly, with "fire," so to speak, so there was no reason to complain.
Unfortunately, many of the children did not appreciate this and soon began to openly nod off. However, a couple of loud blows on the table and accurately thrown chalk on the foreheads of the most obtuse ones quickly corrected the situation; even Shikamaru did not escape the righteous anger of the teacher.
I was in no hurry to get to know the class. Firstly, I simply had nothing to talk about with them, and secondly, most of them were either from some clan or under the tutelage of the village elite (Naruto). Of course, the kids here are a little older mentally, on average a year or two older than their real age, but that doesn't mean I find them interesting. The girls here, apart from their increased desire to pursue a romantic relationship, were nothing special. Only Ino had already tried to pretend to be older than she actually was, but even she herself probably didn't understand why she was doing it.
Even despite my relative youth, it's pretty easy for me to understand the background of almost any child in the class. After all, not a single child has been able to wear any kind of behavioral "mask" properly, so they all walked around with their souls wide open, as they say, and were completely incapable of lying or holding back. And how they showed off their emotions and facial expressions... Any person is a little bit of an empath without any training. And children who are just gushing with emotions and their sincerity will not leave anyone indifferent.
And I am the same way. I really enjoyed watching them, but at the same time I understood that communicating with them was not quite my level. That's why I kept a little apart in class, and the kids subconsciously felt that something was wrong with me. Looking at my classmates for several days, I made the main conclusion, which confirmed the presence of a practically guaranteed canon, albeit a little more realistic. If in the anime certain character traits were very much exaggerated, then here, as in real life, each person was more "stable," if you can say so about character. True, the traits I already knew sometimes manifested themselves periodically.
For example, Kiba Inuzuka was actually a bit of an "alpha." He always tried to look better than he really was, bragged, and behaved as impudently and brazenly as possible, even for a seven-year-old child. Hinata Hyuga, indeed, was very cute in appearance, although she did not quite resemble her image from the anime: her eyes were a little smaller, and it suited her much better. Her character, as I already said, was not completely downtrodden. She could talk normally with her peers, but because of her quiet voice and the way she looked at her fingers, it seemed to everyone that the girl was constantly embarrassed by something.
In the same way, Shikamaru Nara was really very lazy and flaunted it, but at the same time he was not averse to children's games. Choji Akamichi really loved to eat, but he did not elevate food to an absolute. He was also a very good-natured and fairly easygoing person. I sometimes talked to him about various little things. The only ones who in reality exactly repeated their canon image were, oddly enough, both main characters: Naruto and Sasuke. If Naruto has not yet shouted that he will become Hokage, he certainly will soon, then Sasuke has already completely withdrawn into himself, not even trying to establish contact with his classmates.
Sasuke did not prepare notes, at least written ones. If he could answer orally, somehow pushing the words through his "silent coolness," then he did not bring a single homework assignment in writing. Iruka was not too pleased but did not pursue the matter; he wrote off the lack of completed work on the stress after the Uchiha massacre. In a sense, he was right, but in fact, he made it worse. Sasuke realized that he was getting away with it and continued to work carelessly, not paying attention to Iruka's sad face.
After all, Iruka was not the best teacher, and this did not depend on Iruka as a person. Experience played a role here, and our teacher did not have much of it. Naruto could not prepare for anything at all. His perseverance, if it was not equal to zero, was somewhere very close. Any information did not linger in his head for long, apparently considering that it had nothing to do there. And his written assignments were most often not done at all, according to the principle: "But this is boring, dattebayo!" which he proclaimed more than once. Well, or they were done so crookedly that it was practically impossible even for the teacher to read a couple of symbols of his scribbles.
The clanless children were practically unknown to me. Their faceless mass kept them apart from the others. And they did not bother me, preferring to be in their own, very narrow circle of communication. Everyone was happy with this. And me too. The first two weeks after the start, I was simply finally getting used to the new environment. Until now, everything around me was unfamiliar to me for the most part. After all, the knowledge was not mine. All the signs, the local mentality, the peculiarities of etiquette, which I had difficulty perceiving. All this was very, very unusual for me. However, I soon got used to it. A person is like that. He can adapt to anything, but at the same time he was not averse to children's games.
***
Waking up once again, I quickly got up and did my exercises... yeah, right now. I'm already doing them. Not really. Still, no matter how much I didn't want to, I just couldn't force myself to do them in the morning. I had to put off my exercises almost every day. As annoying as it was, I didn't have enough willpower even for that. After all, I'm not the canon Naruto or some Jiraiya.
And yet it's nice to wake up when you want to! How good it is that today is a day off. Crawling out of bed, I turned on the kettle filled with water on the go and went to the bathroom. After freshening up, I drank some black tea, which, fortunately, was available here. True, sugar, the bastard, is expensive. But what won't you do for yourself? In any case, my stipend was quite large, and, despite my increased appetite, I had enough money for small pleasures.
After eating a classic scrambled egg, I quickly put on a T-shirt and went outside. Today I had to try to find myself a part-time job. The first thing I did was go to the forge. Naturally, not to a clan one, but still a very good one. I had noticed the master there a long time ago: he did not have an assistant, and he was already a man of about fifty, although still sinewy and strong. I quickly found the door I had already noticed during my previous walk along the shopping plaza and, without giving myself time to be nervous, entered the workshop.
Greeted only by the ringing of bells, I found myself in the hallway. No one greeted me... Carefully passing through the only door, I found myself in a wide room that immediately gave away the forge. The room had everything for work: several hammers of different sizes for straightening the material, blacksmith's tongs, as well as vats of water, into which, as far as I remember, finished crafts are dipped so that they cool faster. The most important detail of the interior turned out to be the blacksmith himself. He looked exactly as I remembered him when he went out to get some air before entering his workshop. A short haircut, a strong and weathered face, a keen gaze, a small beard. When I silently came a little closer, admiring his work, he finally called out to me.
"What do you want, kid?" He began rudely. Well, I am not so easy to scare off.
"Hello, blacksmith-sama," the memory of my predecessor told me that you can address someone whose name you do not know by profession; "I have come to ask to be your assistant." The master laughed hoarsely.
"No need to call me that. I am not yet so old for you to address me as such." He waved his hammer, straightening the crooked corner of a shuriken, "And why do you think I should take you?"
I shrugged: "And why not? You could use at least an errand boy, and after I observe your work, maybe I could become a more qualified assistant."
A chuckle was my answer once again. The blacksmith took the tongs, the purpose of which I had so accurately guessed, and lowered the finished product into one of the vats with darkened water. Under the hiss of the cooling murder weapon, the master finally answered:
"Hm?" he frowned. "What do you say? Why not? Well, come here and show me what I'm working with."
I came out of the light shadow that was cast by the light bulb on the ceiling and appeared before the blacksmith in all my pitiful glory. A thin, puny body, arms like rice sticks, not much thicker. A joyless sight... I am not capable of anything yet.
"Well..." I heard the words of the master, who returned to work, "I have seen better material... but you will still grow, right? Run along, I'll think about it."
I nodded at his instruction and immediately rushed to the exit, asking passersby where the nearest kiosk was and where I could buy a local fast food lunch.