Konoha Ninja Academy.
“Sasuke, you—”
“Where’s Iruka?”
“He’s not here yet, sensei.
Probably in the office.”
Sakura froze, answering on pure instinct.
Sasuke’s expression was terrifying.
She’d never seen him look like that before.
Bam!
Sasuke shoved the door open and stormed off toward the office.
“What’s going on?
Ugh, Forehead, did you spend all day clinging to Sasuke until you finally pissed him off?”
Ino came back in from the rear door, having gone to fetch water.
“As if!
Ino-Pig, don’t you dare pin this on me!”
Sakura snapped back, indignant.
Shikamaru let out a soundless sigh, then said, without much energy behind it, “It’s probably about that upperclassman, Yanagyū Chiba.
There’s a rumor he graduated early and is off studying at the medical division now.”
“What?”
Sakura went still for a long moment.
“No way!”
Kiba and Ino cried out at almost the same instant, and even Chōji, who rarely bothered to care about this kind of thing, turned his head.
Hadn’t early graduation been discontinued?
“Yeah, apparently Lord Hokage came to the Academy himself yesterday.”
Shikamaru’s answer carried no particular weight.
“…”
The whole classroom went quiet.
Hiruzen had come in person?
Then it had to be true.
“Hey, hey, hey, did you guys hear?
There’s some upperclassman who graduated early, or whatever it’s called—”
Naruto came barreling in, full of energy as always.
Sakura’s mouth twitched.
There was really no telling how to even respond to this guy sometimes.
“Early graduation.”
“Right, right, that!
I heard he’s up there taking exams right now!
Oh, Sensei Iruka’s here!”
He scrambled back to his seat to avoid getting stuck standing in the hall again.
A few seconds later, Iruka walked in with Sasuke, who went straight back to his seat.
Iruka looked around the room, then let out a small sigh.
“All right, I imagine you’ve all heard by now.
Yes, it’s true—Yanagyū Chiba has graduated early.
But the exam he took wasn’t the graduation exam.
It was the formal genin exam.
Possibly the chūnin one.”
“Huh?”
“All right, I’m passing out test papers now.
Everyone, answer the questions.”
Iruka began distributing the sheets.
He hadn’t wanted to bring them at first—it felt too demoralizing.
But Sasuke had insisted, back in the office, on taking the exam himself, so Iruka figured he might as well have the whole class sit for it, and let them see for themselves just how wide the gap was between them and Yanagyū Chiba.
Maybe it would push them to work harder.
The room fell silent.
Soon the only sound left was the scratch of pencils.
Iruka closed his eyes to rest them, not particularly concerned about whether anyone tried to cheat.
None of them were getting a perfect score regardless.
The other reason he’d shut his eyes was that their cheating methods were so clumsy he was worried he’d slam his hand on the desk if he actually watched.
Let them struggle through it in peace.
The minutes ticked by, and cold sweat beaded on more than a few foreheads.
This was too hard!
Sakura kept working through it, unsure of herself on several questions—battlefield-scenario analysis wasn’t exactly her strength—but she managed to finish, one way or another.
Ino, seeing her set her pencil down, immediately used the Transformation Technique to peek and copy in secret.
After a while, Iruka opened his eyes.
“Pencils down.”
“Huh?
Already—”
A number of students scratched their heads in frustration, and even the clan kids like Shikamaru weren’t spared.
Being clever didn’t mean being studious.
Those were two very different things.
Iruka collected the papers one by one, then sat down at his desk and started grading.
After a while, he smiled faintly.
“Highest score goes to Sakura Haruno, eighty points.
Second is Sasuke Uchiha, seventy-six.
As for the rest of you—either you failed, or you already know exactly why you got the score you got.”
“…”
No one dared argue.
Sakura glanced at Sasuke, saw the frustration building on his face like he was about to speak, and jumped in first.
“Sensei, does eighty points pass?”
“Heh.
Chiba got a perfect score.”
Iruka smiled.
“And I heard from Lord Hokage that the second part of the exam was to force his shadow clone to use something other than taijutsu.”
“Wait, isn’t that guy the one who can’t use ninjutsu?”
The question tumbled out of Sakura before she could stop it.
Sasuke’s hands curled into fists.
A shadow clone.
Even if it was only a clone, it was still the Hokage’s clone.
Forcing an opponent like that to resort to something beyond taijutsu should have been next to impossible—and this boy, who supposedly couldn’t even manage ninjutsu, had actually pulled it off.
Damn it.
What have I been doing, all these years?
He recognized his own foolishness in that moment.
All this time at the Academy, he’d let a few good scores make him complacent, while this other boy had already stepped clean outside the walls of the Academy entirely, moving further ahead than any of them—
Even with a full year’s head start against him.
Nobody else in the room had anything left to say either.
The same scene was playing out in Neji’s class, one room over.
If there’d been some lingering sense of I could’ve done that too floating around before, it evaporated the moment words like “chūnin-level exam” and “perfect score” entered the conversation.
“Lord Hokage said as long as you can manage it, he’ll let you skip class too, to go train or study on your own.”
“Lord Hokage, really.” Kitayama Sho finished reading through the documents, her expression turning a little strange.
“Well, I don’t know the full story, but starting today, you’re welcome to come by during the day and study alongside the medical division.”
Early graduation?
That Hiruzen had gone to the trouble of dreaming up an arrangement like this just for one student—and this kid really was something else.
“By the way, what did you want to study, specifically?”
“Medical knowledge.”
Chiba currently knew nothing at all about medicine.
If he asked outright to observe surgery, Kitayama Sho would probably file a complaint with the Hokage before he’d even finished the sentence.
He had no interest in getting on this teacher’s bad side.
“Good.
Theory is the foundation for everything else in ninjutsu.
Not many kids your age have the patience for that—most of them want to leap straight into learning techniques the moment they walk through the door.”
Kitayama Sho nodded, approving.
She pushed her glasses up, turned, and walked into her office, coming back out a moment later with a book in hand.
“This covers basic medical theory.
You can take it home and read through it.
You may never manage medical ninjutsu itself, but there’s no harm in knowing more.”
Chiba took the book from her.
The author’s name printed on the cover read, unmistakably: Tsunade.
He bowed deeply in thanks.
The medical division’s session was wrapping up, so there was no reason for Chiba to linger.
He took the book and ran, reading as he went, utterly absorbed in what he found inside.
Boring?
Not remotely.
Things only felt boring when you couldn’t follow them, couldn’t learn them.
Thanks to the light sphere, Chiba’s ability to absorb new material was formidable—he could take it in fast even while splitting his attention two ways at once.
Every book he read left him with a feeling of being somehow scoured clean, refreshed.
That was exactly why he could spend hours buried in the library without noticing the time pass.
Unfortunately, the Academy’s collection wasn’t large, and he’d already worked through most of it.
Now, with this new book in hand, he felt that old joy of learning all over again.
Thud!
He rounded a corner and collided with someone.
“Sorry, sorry—I got too caught up in it, didn’t see you coming!”
Chiba ignored the sting and scrambled to apologize.
A silver-haired shinobi stood in front of him, headband tilted at an angle, the lower half of his face hidden behind a mask, one visible eye narrowed at him.
He was holding a book of his own.
“Kid, you’re not reading something scandalous, are you?”
“No wonder it’s the work of one of the Legendary Three—it explains things so clearly!
It’s brilliantly written!”
“One of the Legendary Three?
You don’t mean—”
Kakashi’s visible eye went wide.
With unmistakable interest he tilted his head to get a better look at the cover, leaning in almost without meaning to, his expression shifting into something between confusion and genuine astonishment.
Basic medical theory.
Author: Tsunade.
Well, would you look at that.
Something like that actually held his attention?
He’d assumed it was the same series as the book in his own hand.
This kid was something else entirely.
He’d been about to make a joke of it, but then he took in Chiba’s height, his clothes—
This kid couldn’t be older than twelve.
Definitely not old enough yet to be picking up the other author’s work.
I’m the disgusting one here.
Kakashi reflected on this with real gravity, while outwardly he simply nodded, offering approval.
“Good.
Keep at your studies—you’ll grow into an impressive shinobi one day.
Though maybe don’t get quite so lost in a book while you’re running.”
“Yes, sir!”
Chiba straightened up, apologized once more with the book still in hand, and went back to running and reading at the same time.
Kakashi tilted his head, watching him go, his confusion plain even behind the mask.
Was there really someone in this world who got that absorbed in studying?
Well.
Now he’d seen it.
“Yo, Kakashi!
Didn’t expect to run into you here—how about a hot-blooded showdown of youth!”
“I need to study.
Next time.”
Kakashi did his best to ignore him.
Guy glanced at Chiba’s retreating back, then down at the book in Kakashi’s hand.
“You’re standing there holding a copy of Icha Icha Paradise and talking about studying?
What a waste of youthful passion!
Come on, let’s duel!”