Orphanage

That useless ninja continued, "Pair up for taijutsu training. The last ten today don't get to eat."

Around thirty children formed fifteen groups without expression. No one dared pair up with the older children, while the younger ones looked terrified. Clearly, this was not their first time doing this so-called taijutsu training.

In pairs, the fifteen sets of children faced each other. The useless Chunin nodded, then waved his hand.

The Orphanage children began awkward yet viciously beating each other up. No one wanted to go without food. They all knew how unbearable hunger was.

Before long, more than a dozen children had been hurt. The worst one had an eye swollen shut and blackened with bruises, yet still fiercely tried to fight back. The supervising Chunin showed no intention of stopping them.

"Sister Meizi, I remember the Orphanage was established less than a week ago, right? Shouldn't taijutsu and things like that be taught at the Ninja Academy?"

With Sister Meizi's explanation, Dada came to understand how the Kumogakure Orphanage operated.

What was an Orphanage? Naturally, it was a place that took in orphans. But how did orphans come to be?

In the Shinobi World, only those with the potential to become ninja had a chance to enter an Orphanage. The countless ordinary orphans received no care at all. No ninja village would spend money and effort raising orphans without the potential to become ninja, unless they had been left behind by fallen ninja from that village.

The Shinobi World was currently at peace. Most of these thirty-odd children had been gathered by Kumogakure from the Land of Lightning and the surrounding smaller countries. Some had suffered famine, some had lost family members to ninja missions, and some had simply been abandoned.

They were already among the small number of lucky ones. They no longer had to worry about starving to death one day. Their other companions would continue struggling on the edge of hunger, fighting until their heads bled for a bite to eat, then dying in unnoticed ditches or caves.

A small number were descendants of Kumogakure ninja. Their numbers were low in times of peace, but without exception, they were all children of Civilian Ninja. When ninja from clans died in battle, their clans would raise the surviving children. Even in the worst case, there was no need to send them to an Orphanage. The children of ninja who came here all had fathers who had been Civilian Ninja and no relatives willing to raise them.

The purpose of the ninja village raising these children was to cultivate ninja. Although Kumogakure did not train orphans as obvious cannon fodder like Konohagakure, or even drag them off for human experiments, Kumogakure still implemented militarized management.

The Orphanage had also been established in imitation of Konohagakure. Though it had earned some goodwill, Kumogakure as a whole did not place much importance on it. This useless Chunin was clearly a one-track-minded fool.

Perhaps, in his eyes, it was perfectly normal to make a group of children who had only arrived in Kumogakure a week ago undergo militarized taijutsu training.

But Dada felt that this was not quite appropriate...

These children had arrived in Kumogakure less than a week ago and had no sense of belonging at all. They were already anxious and unsettled, yet they were being subjected to militarized management...

This was not cultivating Kumogakure's future strength. Wasn't it cultivating rogue ninja and unstable elements instead?

Dada knew Kumogakure's Orphanage might already be considered quite good, but that was no excuse to simply let things rot.

They could not possibly raise a group of social outcasts and unstable elements, especially when these people would become ninja in the future...

Dada curled his lip and turned back toward the village. At the moment, he had neither the standing nor the ability to do anything.

Dada took small, quick steps back to the Yotsuki Clan compound. He brought pastries to greet his mother, chatted with her for a while, then bade her farewell and returned home, intending to continue reading.

But unexpectedly, someone had come to visit.

"Dada, how has your training been lately?" Third Raikage A asked.

"Same as always," Dada said gloomily.

The Third Raikage—or rather, the entire Yotsuki Clan—was very concerned about Dada's training progress. But these past few years, it had always been the same.

Although, as he grew older, his Chakra extraction became faster and the amount he could extract increased, filling a soccer field was still a distant dream.

Oh, and the soccer field was Dada's own analogy. Others only knew that the Chakra he extracted was being absorbed.

The Third Raikage asked a few more questions related to training, and Dada answered honestly. Afterward, A brought up something else.

"Is this notebook yours? Did you invent some kind of encryption code yourself?"

Dada looked at the notebook in A's hand, and his scalp went numb... His notes...

The notebook was filled with questions he had been curious about and impressions from his reading. He had written them in Chinese characters. Chinese characters existed in the world of Naruto as well, but their usage was like Japanese from his previous life: they looked the same, but meant different things. So Dada had used Chinese to record certain things, treating it as a form of secrecy.

But it seemed he had underestimated ninja methods. Encryption and codebreaking were required ninja skills, though Dada had no idea just how extraordinary they could be.

He could only hope that A had not understood it.

Still, he could not help resenting the Third Raikage. Reading someone else's things without asking was bad enough, but asking about them right in front of him meant A truly did not take a child seriously...

Bullying him because he was young...

"Yes, Father. Whenever I have some thoughts while reading, I write them down. This... code was something I researched myself," Dada could only admit through gritted teeth.

A was somewhat surprised. He was busy with work every day and, aside from training, truly had not paid much attention to his two children's daily lives. Today, he had happened to come by and seen the notebook. At first glance, its contents were incomprehensible, but after studying it using his familiarity with some Chinese characters and ninja codebreaking methods, he had deciphered seven or eight parts out of ten. Though it was only a preliminary understanding, he had found some interesting things within.

As for privacy... what privacy could a six-year-old child have? At least, not in Kumogakure.

The Third Raikage looked at Meizi with questioning eyes and received a confirming answer.

Regardless of anything else, the encryption was quite convincing. It felt comprehensive and could contain an enormous amount of information, almost like a real language.

If Dada knew the Third Raikage thought that, he might have smashed his head against a wall. This was originally a complete and great language. He had thought writing things in Chinese characters would be safe.

Ninja really had some tricks up their sleeves. He had been careless...

Experience had truly led him astray. The Qidian Orphanage trope had killed him.

(In reality, if a language or script has enough surviving records, it can be deciphered and reconstructed even without anyone teaching it. If it has a historical lineage, it becomes even easier.)

The Third Raikage had no awareness at all that he was invading someone else's privacy. Children had no rights, after all. He directly found a page in front of Dada, pointed at it, and said, "Here, you wrote that the village's... um, economic sources are too singular and the risks are too high. What do you mean?"

"Father, I was just writing casually..." Dada said awkwardly.

"It's all right, Dada. Answer my question. Consider it a test for you. Ninja also need powerful minds."

Seeing that he could not bluff his way through it, Dada hesitated.

There were quite a few important things written in there. Given the current situation, even if he did not say anything, A could decipher them himself...

In that case, he might as well use this opportunity to accomplish some of his own ideas.

Then... well, in a world where six-year-olds could go to war, it was perfectly normal for him to be a little precocious, right?