Time slipped by, slow moment by moment yet swift in passing. The summer heat still lingered, but the autumn sun high overhead grew ever gentler.
During this time, Shingetsu's schedule was crammed with tedious study and training. By day, she attended school under Madara Uchiha's watchful eye until classes ended, and from afternoon into the night, she still had to train under his supervision. Every day was sheer torment.
After Madara became a teacher, his crushingly strict teaching methods, combined with the intimidation of that history lesson, drove some students to drop out. Yet his and Hashirama's presence also drew a flood of new students.
Shingetsu could only gloat over this turn of events. She wished even more students would come and experience the hellish training she endured every day.
Now you can all feel my pain!
But she soon discovered that her suffering still surpassed everyone else's.
Of the three teachers currently teaching at the Ninja Academy, one was her mother, one was her master, and the last was her mother's superior and her master's closest friend-as well as her distant uncle.
As far as Shingetsu was concerned, nothing could have been more annoying.
This lineup went well beyond simply having a few family connections. It was practically her entire circle of family and friends. Anyone in her position would have found it hellish.
Whenever it was time to call on someone or test their skills, she was always the first picked to answer a question or spar with someone. During class, those three kept watching her, whether deliberately or not. The instant Shingetsu started slacking off or letting her mind wander, she was caught!
If Tōka or Hashirama caught her, it was still manageable. But if it was Madara Uchiha, she could forget about sleeping that night. He would work her to death!
Under such terrifying layers of surveillance, Shingetsu had no choice but to stay alert and pay attention in class. Since she was also always the one called on to answer questions, she gradually became an acknowledged top student.
All Shingetsu had to say about this unexpected blessing was:
I never wanted to be the queen of overachievers, but someone keeps forcing me to work hard every day!
During this time, Hiruzen Sarutobi seemed determined to prove his sincerity. He continued pestering her every day, rushing over whenever he had the chance to declare his love or stuffing atrociously written love poems into her desk. He nearly drove Shingetsu mad.
But every time he did so, Madara Uchiha beat him up first. Then Tōka found an excuse to give him another thrashing. After school, the Senju brothers teamed up to beat him, and once he got home, his father, Sasuke Sarutobi, and his mother gave him another mixed-doubles beating.
With the Uchiha youngsters also throwing a sack over his head and beating him every night, that unlucky monkey was getting thrashed five times a day.
This guy really can take a beating!
Whenever Shingetsu saw Hiruzen Sarutobi, who had been beaten black and blue and left barely breathing the night before, bouncing around and confessing to her again the next day, she was astounded by both his shamelessness and his enormous reserves of health.
Of course, accepting his confession remained out of the question. It would never happen in this lifetime.
Over these past few months, Shingetsu and Chinatsu had also grown much closer, becoming trusted friends who could talk about anything.
She had to admit, anyone named Yakushi really did have a knack for things!
Although Chinatsu had never undergone Shinobi training before, the Ninja Academy's lessons and Shingetsu's extra tutoring allowed her not only to catch up with her classmates from Shinobi clans, but also to display astonishing talent in Medical Ninjutsu and intelligence gathering.
Shingetsu took this in stride. All she wanted to say was:
People named Yakushi really are good at this!
Amid a school life that was more than full enough, four months flew by. At last, the season Shingetsu had been looking forward to most arrived!
Autumn, the season of harvest, had finally come!
Autumn was naturally the season of harvest, and the Land of Fire, blessed by the heavens, enjoyed bountiful harvests year after year.
It had the most pleasant climate and the most fertile soil in the entire Shinobi world, as well as the most hardworking and capable farmers.
For the farmers of the Land of Fire, as long as the weather cooperated, a complete crop failure was almost unheard of.
Whatever effort and strength they put into the land, the land returned in kind. Under such circumstances, plenty of people toiled day and night, working until every task in the fields was finished or they collapsed from exhaustion.
But although the land was generous, whether the nobles would seize their crops after the harvest was another matter entirely.
Now, Shingetsu walked through golden rice fields. As the breeze stirred them, she felt as though she were floating through rolling waves of gold.
She reached out and carefully touched the heavy ears of grain, Shingetsu's heart full of emotion. It seemed that, in the blink of an eye, the rice seedlings planted in April and May had already ripened.
"This is a bumper harvest! Kazuko, you've all done an amazing job!"
Shingetsu's face flushed with excitement. She had thought recovering forty or fifty percent of her investment this year would be good enough. Yet now, the rice fields stretching beyond the horizon were filled with golden grain, gleaming as though the ground had been covered in gold.
No, this was gold-something even more precious than gold. Real gold could not save lives, but food could.
"It's all thanks to the support you, Lord Hayato, and Lord Yota gave us!"
Dressed in clean, tidy clothes and looking sturdier than before, Kazuko gazed at the scene before her with just as much excitement-perhaps even more than Shingetsu.
From seeds to seedlings to ripe rice, she had watched these precious crops grow little by little and personally taken part in every step.
Watching crops nurtured with all her heart and sweat grow, then finally reaching this moment of harvest-the joy and heartache were truly beyond words!
Kazuko was on the verge of tears. She could not help remembering the loved ones and homeland she had lost.
They had all burned before her eyes, and every day afterward, she had lived within those flames. But now, looking at these fertile fields and the joyful people around her, she felt as though all the pain of the past might be swept away by the happiness of this moment.
Now she could finally be certain that, after half a lifetime of hardship and wandering, she had found a new home.
Just as Kazuko's tears began to fall, Hayato Uchiha and Yōta Uchiha, whom she had mentioned, were also staring blankly at the bountiful rice fields.
These two useless Uchiha had neither awakened their Sharingan nor achieved strength beyond Chunin level. But besides the Fire Release standard among Uchiha, they happened to possess water and earth affinities respectively, so Madara had sent them to help in the fields.
Not only had they taken on the tasks of reclaiming farmland and exterminating wild beasts, but at Shingetsu's request, they also had to make the rounds of the fields every few days, handling anything the tenant farmers could not manage themselves.
Sometimes they drove away beasts stealing seeds; sometimes they irrigated the rice fields with Water Release. Other times they dug drainage channels or even helped carry things... These two had to do just about everything.
What Shinobi would willingly do such trivial chores?
Though they were furious, they were too weak to stand up to their clan leader. They could only obediently accept these lousy tasks, and they worked reasonably hard at them.
The tenant farmers had been afraid of them at first, but once they grew familiar, they discovered that the pair were merely typical Uchiha-prickly on the outside and soft underneath. With Kazuko taking the lead, they brought gifts and offered flattering words every day to soothe their tempers. Over time, they became surprisingly close and got along very well.
At the tenant farmers' invitation, Hayato and Yota had also come to the familiar fields to take in the splendid sight of the harvest.
Now, gazing out over the endless rice fields ready for harvest, their hearts swelled with emotion.
Even though they were merely two Shinobi who knew nothing about farming, all the work they had done had given them an attachment to these fields. Seeing such an astonishing harvest, they could not help feeling a considerable measure of pride.
After all, they had reclaimed these fields with their own hands. They had tilled that patch over there and dug this channel here. They deserved a share of the credit for this harvest!
One reason the harvest had gone so smoothly was, naturally, that the tenant farmers here were experienced, hardworking, and capable. They thoroughly understood techniques such as cultivating rice seedlings and controlling pests.
Moreover, having suffered through turmoil, these farmers treasured the fields they had gained with such difficulty, and every one of them worked exceptionally hard.
Farming was a skilled occupation. It required not only knowledge, but also a great deal of patience and strength.
The second reason was that Shingetsu's preparations had been extremely thorough.
All the farming tools she had prepared in advance had been made from fine materials by skilled blacksmiths, making them comfortable and easy to use. The seeds she had bought at a high price from Cat Granny were also carefully selected, high-quality stock.
Although that profiteer Cat Granny had nearly emptied her treasury, what Shingetsu received was indeed exceptionally good. All she could say was that you got what you paid for.
Not only that, Shingetsu was not as stingy as the nobles and Daimyō, who were only willing to feed their tenant farmers barnyard millet. Throughout these months, she had sent rice. With full bellies and immense gratitude for her generosity, the tenant farmers naturally worked even faster and harder.
On top of that, Hayato and Yota were periodically sent over to use Ninjutsu to solve problems the farmers could not handle themselves, such as digging channels and ponds or tilling fields with Earth Release, or turning dry ground into wetland with Water Release. Tasks that would cost ordinary people enormous amounts of time and effort took the pair only one or two techniques to complete.
With so many people pouring in so much care, sweat, money, and effort, the generous soil of the Land of Fire naturally rewarded them with an incredibly rich return-
Shingetsu casually picked a stalk of rice from the field beside her. Its golden ear drooped beneath its own weight, densely packed with grains from top to bottom.
And this was merely one ordinary stalk among rice fields that stretched beyond the horizon.
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