The next day, when Hiruzen had Ryosuke deliver the modified Three Body Technique to Xue Ge during a break, Xue Ge was utterly stunned.
Although Minato had promised to ask Hiruzen for help on Xue Ge's behalf...
Lord Third worked a little too fast. The Professor of Ninjutsu really was terrifying.
So Xue Ge spent the entire morning poring over the annotations Hiruzen had written on the scroll, without listening to a word of Ryosuke's lessons.
Hiruzen had a real gift for teaching. His explanations on the scroll made complex ideas easy to understand. Although the Three Body Technique was the only modified Ninjutsu explicitly set out in it, Hiruzen used it as a foundation to branch out, explaining many possibilities for modifying Ninjutsu and offering guidance.
Although Hiruzen had never encountered Xue Ge's line of thinking before, his experience in learning and developing Ninjutsu was arguably unmatched in the current Shinobi World. The material he had personally selected as suitable for Xue Ge to learn and understand truly astounded him.
I don't know just how strong the Third is. But his profound understanding of Ninjutsu alone offers a glimpse of what qualifies him to be [Hokage].
Xue Ge read with immense satisfaction until noon, then took a deep breath and closed the scroll. He fully understood what Hiruzen meant and could hardly wait for a chance to put it into practice.
He also had something else he was eagerly anticipating. He had yet to tell the Third about his idea of constructing Ninjutsu outside his body, and now he desperately wanted an opportunity to discuss it with him face-to-face-though Xue Ge knew that was all but impossible.
As the bell rang, his classmates swarmed out of the classroom. Xue Ge rolled up the scroll and put it back in his drawer, preparing to head to the Playground for physical training.
Just then, a box wrapped in pale blue-green cloth was set on the desk in front of him.
Xue Ge paused and looked at Muzi beside him. Muzi winked at him with the left eye, then hurried out of the classroom carrying another lunch box.
"..." Xue Ge could more or less guess what was inside the cloth bundle.
After a moment's hesitation, he carried the pale blue-green bundle out of the classroom. He looked around for a while, then found a shaded spot in a corner by the courtyard wall and sat down. He opened the bundle, and sure enough, there was a lunch box inside.
The meal was simple: rice filled two-thirds of the box, and side dishes filled the remaining third. Along with the vegetables were a few pieces of char siu and half an egg. It looked rather like a standard boxed meal from some school cafeteria.
A set of utensils was clipped to the inside of the lid. With a solemn sense of ceremony, Xue Ge took them out, pressed his palms together, and silently gave thanks before starting to eat.
Come to think of it, he could count on his fingers the number of proper meals he had eaten during his four years of training. Now that he had eaten proper meals almost every day for the past three days, he actually found it a little hard to get used to.
After finishing, Xue Ge washed the utensils at the sinks, treating it as his post-meal break. Once he had given them a quick rinse, packed everything away, and returned it to his seat, he headed back to the Playground to resume his physical training.
For some reason, Might Guy did not join Xue Ge on his laps around the Playground that day. Without that overly hot-blooded boy, Xue Ge felt as though something was missing.
But someone soon filled that gap.
"Kakashi?" Xue Ge tilted his head at the white-haired boy who had hurried over to match his pace. "What about Obito and Rin?"
"They're taking a nap." Kakashi gestured toward their classmates resting with their eyes closed beneath a distant tree. "Have time for a chat?"
"When and where?"
"Now. As for where... beneath that tree."
The two ran over to the tree and sat down on opposite sides of its trunk, neither even slightly out of breath.
"What about?" Xue Ge asked bluntly. Unlike a prodigy like Kakashi, Xue Ge had no time to waste.
"You want to graduate early too, right?" Kakashi wanted to confirm his suspicions.
"One year." "What?"
"I'm going to graduate from the Ninja Academy within a year."
Kakashi froze for a moment. His suspicions had been confirmed, but that answer was a little too definite.
"Graduate in one year... do you know what that means?"
"I don't think it'll be a problem," Xue Ge replied naturally. "Theory classes are easy. Actual combat won't be too difficult."
"What about Ninjutsu?" Kakashi asked with a frown. "You have to learn at least the Three Body Technique to graduate from the Ninja Academy."
"Before, that would've been difficult. But now..." Xue Ge thought about Hiruzen's written guidance. "No problem."
"..." Kakashi fell silent for a moment. Rather than digging into why Xue Ge had suddenly learned the Three Body Technique, he continued, "You have to apply to Lord Hokage to graduate early. I asked my father about it. The exam is extremely strict, and fighting a Chunin or even a Jonin is almost inevitable."
"I don't know the exact requirements for passing, but... the ninja fighting us will go all out."
With that, he turned his head toward Xue Ge, who sat with his back to him. "It won't be as simple as a fight between you and me."
"Do you want to graduate early too?" Xue Ge asked.
Kakashi nodded. "Yeah."
"Then are you scared?" Xue Ge asked next.
"...Of course not." Kakashi shook his head.
"Then why would you think I'd be scared?"
Xue Ge also turned his head toward Kakashi, and their gazes met.
After they looked at each other for a moment, Kakashi chuckled, seeming to relax a little. He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. "As I thought, we're alike in some ways."
"Maybe." Xue Ge neither agreed nor disagreed. "Anything else?"
"We can spar and talk more when we have the chance," Kakashi said as he stood up. "I'm planning to graduate early too. I hadn't decided when, but now I have a target."
He walked over beside Xue Ge and gazed at their classmates napping in the shade across the Playground.
"I won't graduate later than you, Xue Ge."
"Whatever." As far as Xue Ge was concerned, Kakashi's sudden surge of fighting spirit had nothing to do with him.
He only wanted to complete his mission step by step, following Danzo's requirements. He only wanted a peaceful life. Although becoming a ninja made peace impossible, he hoped his own life could at least be relatively peaceful.
"I look forward to learning from you, Xue Ge. Your Taijutsu is better than mine, and I think I have more experience with Ninjutsu. Since we both want to graduate early, we can learn from each other."
"And I hope you won't hold back when we fight from now on," Kakashi added. "I won't hold back either."
"Of course."
With that, Xue Ge stood up, walked past Kakashi, and resumed running around the Playground beneath the blazing sun.