The First Day of School

The morning sunlight poured down warmly. The spring air was cool and fresh.

A small figure climbed out of bed early in the morning.

After running around the courtyard for half an hour, he went back inside to wash up and get ready for breakfast.

Danzo seemed to have left the previous night.

In truth, the entire Shimura family had fewer than fifty direct-line members. Even counting the servants, there were fewer than two hundred people.

Compared with the Byakugan clan, which numbered over a thousand, they were practically country bumpkins.

After breakfast, Tomoko took Bing San out of the Shimura residence for the first time in broad daylight.

Konoha in this era wasn't as bustling as it would be in the future. Still, two- and three-story buildings lined the streets, with shops scattered here and there on either side.

Following the main road straight ahead led to the Hokage Building.

Bing San really wanted to try the famous Ichiraku Ramen.

Unfortunately, he was still too young, and nobody would let him wander off alone.

Tomoko took Bing San to the school to enroll. It wasn't registration day, but since the Hokage had personally approved it, Bing San was admitted right away.

After completing the enrollment, a round-faced teacher led Bing San away.

Before leaving, Tomoko repeatedly urged Bing San to behave himself and not get into fights.

Bing San narrowed his little eyes, looking quite impatient. He waved at Tomoko and said, "You're such a nag, you old hag."

The teacher led Bing San into the school with a strange look on his face, leaving Tomoko alone in front of the principal's office, utterly bewildered.

"Class, quiet down! We have a new student joining us today. I hope you'll all get along.

"Come in and introduce yourself to everyone," the teacher said, calling toward the door.

Bing San pushed the door open and walked in. The tiered classroom held quite a few children—thirty or forty of them. They stared at Bing San, a sea of dark heads, but he wasn't nervous. If anything, he found it boring.

"My name is Bing San. I'm five years old"—Tomoko had told him to say he was five—"that's all." After speaking, Bing San stood at the podium and nodded to the teacher to show he was done.

"Tch, that's no introduction at all. You're so tiny, are you really five?" A boy in the front row shouted at Bing San, gesturing as he spoke.

"Feng, he's just a commoner without even a surname. It's only natural that he's a bit short. Tender grass growing in the dirt is always so weak and fragile." The speaker was the boy's deskmate, whose eyes were completely white. He was obviously from the Hyuga family.

"Uchiha Feng, Hyuga Go, that's so rude! How can you talk to him like that?" The girl who spoke looked delicate and gentle.

After Bing San finished saying "that's all," the classroom grew noisy. It was hard to get children to settle down, especially when they were five or six years old.

"Ahem, quiet down," the teacher called out. The noisy children fell silent.

"His name is Shimura Bing San, and he's Lord Shimura Danzō's son. You should all get along. All right, Bing San, find a seat. Class is about to start."

Bing San walked to the third row from the back. A pineapple-haired boy sat there, leaning over his desk and doing who knew what. Behind him, a chubby boy kept eating.

The chubby boy's deskmate was a slightly chubby-cheeked boy who was bothering the girl in front of him.

The girl's large red eyes were full of anger, and tears were beginning to well up.

To Bing San's right sat a girl with purple markings painted on her face. She was holding her textbook upside down and clearly wasn't paying attention. Who knew what she was thinking about?

Bing San paid them little attention. He simply took out his own book, set it on the desk, and started daydreaming.

He hadn't learned to read at home yet. He couldn't make out a single word.

Suddenly, the classroom door flew open, and a boy in a blue outfit and goggles came running in. The teacher and students all looked at him.

"Um, I'm terribly sorry. I was late because I helped an old lady cross the street." The boy looked embarrassed. The sweat on his forehead and his damp clothes showed that he'd been running for quite a while.

"Obito, how many times has this happened now? You're late every day, and you never learn. Come see me in the office after school." The teacher glared at the boy, gave him a mild scolding, then sent him to his seat.

"Obito, are you all right?" The girl beside him looked at him with a saintly smile. It seemed the girl with the face paint was Rin.

"Tch, idiot." The white-haired boy beside Rin had to be Kakashi, right?

"Stuck-up Kakashi," Obito shot back without missing a beat.

"Hmph." "Hmph."

Watching them, Bing San couldn't help but marvel, "You two are really close!"

Class dragged on painfully, especially for Bing San.

With nothing else to do, he scanned the other students. He recognized quite a few of them.

There was Obito, Kakashi, and Rin from earlier. The red-eyed girl was probably Yūhi Kurenai, and the chubby-cheeked boy behind her was probably Asuma. And the green, watermelon-haired boy who looked a little dim had to be Might Guy.

But who was the pineapple-haired boy? A child from the Ino-Shika-Cho clans?

After listening for a while and realizing he couldn't understand anything, Bing San took out the book he'd received the day before and started examining it.

Just then, the pineapple-haired boy beside him said, "Hello, I'm Nara Shikaku. You're Shimura Bing San, right? Where did you get that book? Could I borrow it?"

(The author, looking utterly bewildered, would like to interject: please stop telling me that Shikaku and Minato are the same age. I know Shikaku is normally about five years older than Minato! But don't you think there's a reason this timeline doesn't match up? Why do you insist on arguing with me about their ages? Couldn't you use that rusted brain of yours and try to figure out why?)

Bing San was a little surprised. The timeline didn't seem right. Wasn't Nara Shikaku supposed to be several years older than Minato Namikaze? This kid looked no more than eleven or twelve.

Bing San glanced at Nara Shikaku and asked, "What's this book about?"

Nara Shikaku rubbed his forehead. "I haven't read it either. If you've read it, how do you not know what it says?"

"I can't read," Bing San admitted awkwardly. He was still so young. At home, all he did was sleep, eat, or, when he was awake, run around and climb trees.

He had no idea what the Third Hokage and the others were thinking, making him go to school. Maybe Danzō had insisted he attend. Who knew?

Nara Shikaku scratched his head. "What a hassle. How about this? Give me the book, and I'll teach you to read."

Nara clan members were incredibly lazy. They'd never volunteer to give themselves extra work. This book must have been valuable to Nara Shikaku.

Bing San narrowed his eyes and said,

"If you teach me to read, I'll look at it with you."

"Let me look at it first, and I'll teach you to read."

"Teach me to read first." "Let me look at it first."

The two haggled over such a trivial matter, making for a rather odd sight.

The older one was already over ten, while the younger looked like a tiny bean.

In the end, Nara Shikaku gave in to Bing San and began teaching him to read with the book.

In the first year at the Ninja Academy, students mainly learned to read and didn't study anything especially advanced. But Bing San had started school six months late, so he'd missed the literacy lessons.

After class, Bing San and Shikaku had gotten somewhat acquainted. He asked Shikaku what kind of story the book was about. Shikaku said it wasn't a story at all, but a chess manual...

(If you enjoyed this book, add it to your bookshelf so you can find it again next time.)