Ninja Academy Observation

That was right—Orochimaru had shamelessly plagiarized the speech.

After all, if he went too deep, these children would not understand it.

So he had simply pulled out a speech his teacher had once used.

Not that he had gone looking for it.

It was because...

Orochimaru had memorized it so thoroughly that he could not forget it even if he wanted to.

Orochimaru was speaking entirely without notes. After all, he truly had etched the contents of that speech deep into his heart.

On a tree not far away, Jiraiya, sprawled across a branch, subconsciously scratched at his ear.

He was so familiar with the speech too that his ears were practically growing calluses.

"Yo, Tsunade."

He called down to the person beneath the tree.

That was right, Tsunade was standing below it.

Listening to Orochimaru's all-too-familiar speech, impatience showed on Tsunade's face as well.

While feeling irritated, she looked toward the student of Orochimaru's she had agreed to teach—a bespectacled little boy among the Ninja Academy students gathered on the training ground.

The boy looked as though he were listening with great attention.

He gave off the impression of having a very proper attitude, the sort of student teachers would recognize at a glance as a good one.

At least on the surface, he seemed very well-behaved.

He was not the loud, rowdy sort, which pleased Tsunade somewhat.

Then Tsunade looked at a six-year-old child in the crowd who appeared calm and seemed to possess a maturity beyond his years.

The eldest son of the Uchiha clan head. Based on what she had heard from Anko last night, he was a genius with extraordinary talent.

The Third Hokage was also watching Itachi Uchiha.

After all, he had accepted Orochimaru's request, and it was not one he could easily refuse.

It concerned the village's political balance. In his position as the Third Hokage, he could not ignore such a request.

Besides, though he was devoted to martial training, it was not as if he could not spare time to guide disciples and younger generations.

After all, martial practice required a balance between exertion and rest. Teaching disciples and juniors in his spare time might even inspire him in some way.

At last, Orochimaru finished his speech.

Led by the teachers, the students broke into applause.

Today's lesson involved practical sparring.

The Ninja Academy students immediately erupted with excitement!

After all, Fifth Hokage Orochimaru was here. That meant they could show off in front of Lord Fifth. If they caught Lord Fifth's eye, perhaps they could receive some guidance from him?

The students were all fired up, each rubbing their hands together and vowing to perform well before Lord Fifth.

And Orochimaru did indeed intend to see which promising seedlings in the Ninja Academy were worth cultivating.

After all, as Hokage, he had to consider the development potential of the village's reserve strength.

The Ninja Academy was an essential foundation for the ninja village to balance the major Ninja Clans.

It was also an important link binding together the village's various factions.

No amount of attention paid to it could be excessive.

However, Orochimaru was clearly someone with exceptionally high standards and expectations.

Though some students performed fairly well, none of them particularly interested him.

It was not until Kabuto took the field that his spirits lifted slightly, and he watched Kabuto's battle against a specially arranged opponent with great interest.

The opponent was considerably stronger than Kabuto, yet not entirely impossible to defeat.

A member of the Hyuga clan. His Byakugan could see the flow of Chakra, and for Kabuto, whose techniques relied heavily on precise Chakra control, any movement of his Chakra would reveal his intentions to the Hyuga child.

It could be said that he countered Kabuto quite thoroughly.

Yet Kabuto still managed a difficult, narrow victory in the end.

After winning, Kabuto wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked uneasily toward Orochimaru.

He felt that his victory had been dangerously close, likely barely satisfactory at best. He did not know whether Orochimaru would be disappointed in him.

He would not be.

Faced with a deliberately arranged opponent designed to counter him, Kabuto had still managed to win with difficulty. Orochimaru was already very satisfied with that performance.

"Good child." The Third Hokage, who had also watched Kabuto's performance beside Orochimaru, commented, "No wonder you value him. He is remarkably sharp and intelligent."

"Teacher, there is another child."

"Itachi?"

With Orochimaru's prior arrangements, Itachi took the field immediately after Kabuto.

Then a large group of lower-grade girls at the Ninja Academy actually burst into an uproar.

The Third Hokage watched the scene with dark lines across his face.

These girls were only five, six, or seven years old!

Perhaps because the shinobi world was such a special environment, the children here matured far too early. Many who, in the Third Hokage's eyes, were clearly only elementary-school age already had their minds full of romance.

But when he thought of how, during the Shinobi World War, even many students who had not graduated were dragged onto the battlefield...

He could somewhat understand why such an environment of excessively early romance had arisen.

If they did not fall in love now, they might die one day before they got the chance.

The Third Hokage took a deep drag from his pipe.

He truly did not like the shinobi world's environment.

Fortunately...

According to the plan he and Orochimaru had made, the future would be different, would it not?

Itachi's assigned opponent was a student nearing graduation. In other words, he held a physical advantage over Itachi. He had a highly proficient grasp of Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and Genjutsu. He seemed meticulous and cautious, with equally sharp insight and tactical thinking.

He had no obvious weaknesses, performed steadily, and showed no dramatic fluctuations in his ability.

Of course, his raw strength was inferior to Anko's.

But to Itachi, he was somewhat more troublesome than Anko.

"His Three Basic Techniques are extremely proficient." After observing for a while, the Third Hokage said, "He clearly has his own unique understanding of them. This student has an exceptionally solid foundation. He could be called outstanding."

Orochimaru nodded. "He has the potential to become a jonin. It is even possible that he could become one of the elite among jonin."

He was naturally not referring to Itachi, but to the student fighting him.

That was already an extraordinarily impressive evaluation.

After all, becoming a jonin was not easy. For many talented shinobi, the endpoint of their entire lives was jonin—perhaps even only a special jonin. Having the potential to become an elite among jonin was truly the highest praise.

And with such a high evaluation, he naturally had Itachi completely suppressed.

The Three Basic Techniques: the Clone Technique, Transformation Technique, and Substitution Technique.

The Clone Technique represented the foundation of projection-type Ninjutsu; the Transformation Technique represented the foundation of transformation-type Ninjutsu; while the Substitution Technique was fundamentally based on Genjutsu. It used illusions to make the opponent misunderstand and become misled, allowing one to substitute oneself and escape.

Once someone mastered the Three Basic Techniques and developed their own unique understanding of them, they could basically allocate their Ninjutsu and Chakra with relative perfection.

There was a reason the Ninja Academy focused on teaching the Three Basic Techniques.

All Ninjutsu could be developed from the foundations of the Three Basic Techniques.

Of course, Ninjutsu itself was not the key—how it was used was. Chakra itself was not the key—how Chakra was used was.

When Itachi faced an opponent whose use of Chakra and Ninjutsu was, to a certain extent, flawless, and whose raw strength surpassed his...

Could he win?