In the Shinobi World, the Five Great Nations and their five great villages, along with a bunch of smaller villages scraping by in the cracks, all had their own ways of training ninja. The dominant model was still family inheritance-fathers taught sons, grandfathers taught grandsons, and secret techniques and kekkei genkai were kept under tight wraps. Master-apprentice training supplemented that: if a big shot spotted a promising youngster, they could simply whisk the kid away and teach them personally.
But ever since Konoha's Second Hokage Tobirama Senju, hailed as "the Shinobi World's greatest educator" (a self-proclaimed title), cooked up the Ninja Academy, the Shinobi World had gained another route for developing talent: "compulsory education."
Put simply, the Ninja Academy provided basic education, equivalent to the Shinobi World's "elementary and middle school." You wouldn't learn any closely guarded trump cards there; your core abilities still depended on your family and master. So what did the school teach?
The number-one priority: academics!
That was right-even ninja needed an education! Language arts (literacy, writing, reading comprehension), mathematics (basic arithmetic, geometry, mission data analysis), basic ninjutsu theory (chakra properties, the principles of hand seals, identifying common ninjutsu)... all were required subjects. And the most important of all, comparable to a moral education class, was the will of fire! Every day, they drilled in "where leaves dance, fire burns on": love the village, willingly serve as firewood, and bravely burn yourself to light the way for others... (Shinji reported that listening to it made him yawn nonstop.)
The academic requirements weren't actually all that high (except for memorizing the will of fire). After all, the ninja profession believed in practicality. Teachers only demanded the bare minimum: you had to recognize and write all the characters, right? Otherwise, you couldn't even read a mission scroll. You had to know basic arithmetic, right? Otherwise, you could cheat yourself just calculating your mission pay. You had to know basic ninjutsu concepts, right? Otherwise, you wouldn't even recognize the technique your opponent used, and you'd die without knowing what killed you.
Only after that came the fundamentals of combat.
Students learned the Three Basic Body Techniques (Transformation, Clone, and Substitution), practiced throwing shuriken, and learned some D-rank and E-rank taijutsu routines and genjutsu. The goal was to ensure that, by graduation, they at least had the abilities of a "genin workhorse" capable of carrying out D-rank missions (finding cats, weeding, and babysitting).
Want to learn powerful ninjutsu? Not a chance! Ninjutsu of B-rank and above formed the core fighting strength of jonin. Those were closely guarded secrets of families and master-apprentice lineages. How could they possibly teach them to everyone indiscriminately at school?
Which raised the question: was the Ninja Academy really useless?
Obviously, it was tremendously useful!
Tobirama's move was a stroke of genius. He successfully solved the problem of introductory ninja education for the civilian majority of Konoha's population! In Konoha, any child, whether a young master from a Shinobi Clan, a commoner's child, or even a war orphan, was eligible to apply. Anyone who passed a simple aptitude test (mainly assessing physical fitness and chakra sensitivity) could attend for free, and the school even provided lunch! For many poor families, that was enormously appealing!
At school, classes were continually adjusted according to the talents the children displayed, allowing for differentiated instruction. After six years came graduation and assignment: those with mediocre aptitude were sent straight off to become mission workhorses, while the outstanding talents were assigned to powerful jonin as students, entering the elite master-apprentice training system.
Through this system, Konoha could obtain a steady supply of vast numbers of rank-and-file mission runners (genin workhorses), as well as promising talents selected from the common people who were worth nurturing.
The results weren't particularly apparent among Tobirama's generation of students, most of whom were still clan ninja. But by Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi's generation, the effects had become clear-among his personal students, the "Sannin," Jiraiya and Orochimaru were both genuine commoners! Many other jonin of that period had also trained excellent common-born ninja.
The makeup of Class A in Shinji's year made this quite clear. Most students came from Shinobi Clans, but there were also plenty of common-born children, such as Minato Namikaze.
The Namikaze weren't a ninja clan. At most, a few unremarkable chunin and genin had appeared among their ancestors. Right now, probably nobody in all of Konoha could imagine that this blond boy with his warm smile and clear eyes would one day become the Fourth Hokage!
So Minato had a rough time at the start of school. He had only received introductory instruction from a chunin relative, leaving his fundamentals far behind those of the Shinobi Clan children. He had only made it into Class A because Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi, who happened to be bringing his son (Masashige Sarutobi) to enroll, noticed him during the entrance test. Finding the boy's reflexes and chakra sensitivity promising, he had effectively admitted him as a "special recruit."
Most other common-born children in similar circumstances were assigned to Classes B and C. Class A moved fast! Teachers barely touched on the fundamentals, assuming everyone had already learned them at home. Fortunately, the textbooks were handed out on schedule, allowing Minato to rely on his extraordinary comprehension and hard work to frantically catch up in private. Otherwise, the future Fourth Hokage might have suffered a complete meltdown soon after school started and become a genuine dead last.
(Shinji privately snarked: His son Naruto always ranked last in class later on. Partly, the nine-tails chakra interfered with his control. But another reason was probably that, as an orphan, he missed too much early basic education, couldn't keep up from the start, and simply gave up. Of course, inheriting his mother Kushina's "idiot" genes couldn't be ruled out either... hmm, better not let Kushina hear that.)
Precisely because they were both "stragglers," Kushina Uzumaki and Minato Namikaze grew close at lightning speed, quickly forming the "dead-last duo" (Kushina: "Who's in a duo with you?! I just haven't adjusted yet!"). One had only recently arrived from Uzushio Village and needed time to adapt to Konoha's textbooks and teaching methods; the other simply lacked a solid foundation. They were fellow sufferers.
In sharp contrast to the "dead-last duo" was Shinji's "top-student group" (self-proclaimed). Living his second life, he had a mature mind, his family had drilled the school curriculum into him countless times already, and he had a whole system's worth of cheats to boot. What the school taught was child's play to him.
Academics? Too easy. The will of fire? It made him want to sleep. Combat classes? The intensity of school sparring wasn't even enough to tickle him. Every day, Shinji existed in a detached state of "I might as well not bother attending."
Unfortunately, his father Yamakaze and clan leader Kagami were adamant: he had to attend! Their reasons were "integrating into the group, getting to know your comrades, and building connections" (Shinji: In other words, you want me to babysit those brats, right?). He had no choice but to "struggle desperately" in class every day-mostly struggling not to fall asleep.
At school, Shinji found only two things somewhat interesting:
First, playing board games with Shikaku Nara (and asking for a beating).
The Nara Clan kid's intellectual development really was unfair. Whether in shogi or Go, Shinji brought out everything he had learned across both lives, unleashing every trick and sneaky tactic he knew, yet Shikaku still handled him with ease. He lost more than he won (in fact, he never won at all). Shikaku wasn't just good at board games; his thinking was also far more mature than that of his peers. Although he wasn't at an adult's level yet, he was already one of the few people with whom Shinji could discuss serious topics beyond their age. By comparison, the other two members of Ino-Shika-Cho were less impressive: Inoichi Yamanaka had slightly above-average intelligence, while Choza Akimichi was a cheerful, lovable doofus. Those two were basically Shikaku's loyal followers.
Second, tutoring Minato Namikaze.
Shinji had nothing better to do anyway. Seeing that Minato studied diligently and genuinely had talent, only lacking a solid foundation, he occasionally offered a few pointers when Minato encountered a difficult problem. Minato was deeply grateful, and the two grew considerably closer. Shinji was also happy to make an early investment in the "future Hokage's" goodwill.
(Shinji: Hmm, and I can show Minato how knowledgeable this genius is while I'm at it. Perfect!)
Oh, right, Shinji wasn't a loner at school, either. He had a little follower of his own-Torayoshi Uchiha. The boy wasn't from the Uchiha Main Family, but he had decent talent, and unlike the Hyuga Clan, the Uchiha Clan didn't draw strict lines between main and branch families. They placed more importance on strength. Torayoshi was the same age as Shinji and had perfectly inherited the Uchiha's common tendency to "admire the strong." After Shinji "educated" him a few times when they were younger, he became Shinji's devoted little follower and lackey, waiting on him hand and foot at school.
The other student in class with an obvious "entourage" was Masashige Sarutobi.
This boy was indeed Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi's son, and his eldest at that. As for whether he was the future Konohamaru's father, Shinji couldn't be sure. The original story had virtually no description of the guy, only briefly mentioning when introducing Konohamaru that "his parents were both ANBU jonin, the Hokage's trusted aides." Everything else was a mystery.
As the current Hokage's only son (for now), Masashige Sarutobi was naturally a center of attention at school.
Wherever people gathered, power games followed-even in an elementary school classroom. Small as Konoha was, it was still a miniature society, and naturally had no shortage of people who curried favor with the powerful.
The children from the major Shinobi Clans were relatively reserved. After all, before Hiruzen Sarutobi rose to power, the Sarutobi Clan had been about on par with their own families. Established great clans like the Hyuga, Ino-Shika-Cho, and Aburame had particularly deep foundations. Hiruzen Sarutobi becoming Hokage meant the Senju Clan really had relinquished power and withdrawn. If your family could hold the Hokage's seat, why couldn't mine someday? In their eyes, Hiruzen Sarutobi's personal prestige was still nowhere near that of Hashirama Senju, the "towering tree that blotted out the sky."
But the children from small and medium-sized Shinobi Clans were different. To them, even before producing a Hokage, the Sarutobi Clan had been a great family they could only look up to, let alone now, with Hiruzen Sarutobi at the height of his power. (The original story mentioned that when the Senju and Uchiha joined forces to establish the village, even Madara was surprised when major clans like the Sarutobi and Shimura came to join them.) Hiruzen Sarutobi was only in his thirties, right in his prime, and few in the Shinobi World could match his strength (which really was true at this point in time).
And so, intentionally or otherwise, several children from smaller clans spent all day clustering around Masashige Sarutobi. On top of that, ever since Second Hokage Tobirama Senju's tenure, the Konoha High Command had openly or covertly pursued a policy of "guarding against the Uchiha and isolating the Uchiha" (commonly known as demonizing the Uchiha). That atmosphere inevitably influenced the children at school to some extent.
Although neither Masashige Sarutobi himself nor Shinji Uchiha had much interest in this childish, make-believe "factional struggle" (Masashige seemed rather composed and understated, while Shinji simply found it juvenile), the trend of "praising the Sarutobi and putting down the Uchiha" had somehow become an unspoken form of "political correctness" in Class A.
Shinji didn't care, and even found it a little funny. A bunch of brats. What the hell do they know about politics? He glanced at the chatterboxes gathered around Masashige Sarutobi, then looked at Minato diligently poring over his books and Kushina angrily wrestling with a math problem. His lips quirked. Teasing the future Fourth Hokage and the little hot pepper is much more fun.
Life at the Ninja Academy was mind-numbingly boring most of the time, but now and then, there was still a little fun to be found.
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