"I'm home!"
Shin'un pushed open the door to his family's flower shop and stepped inside.
A faint floral fragrance filled the shop, refreshing Shin'un as he breathed it in. Even the fatigue from his training seemed to ease considerably.
Shin'un turned toward a corner of the shop, where his father, Shinkaku Hirakawa, was watering the flowers with a sprinkler-style watering can.
Hearing the door open, Shinkaku Hirakawa immediately turned around. Seeing Shin'un come home covered in dust and wearing rumpled clothes again, he couldn't help frowning in distress.
"Hurry upstairs. Your mom finished cooking ages ago. We've just been waiting for you."
At the mention of food, Shin'un immediately felt a pang of hunger.
The first floor housed the flower shop his family ran, while the second floor was where they lived.
Vaulting over the counter, Shin'un headed upstairs via the staircase behind it.
He was only halfway up when the mouthwatering aroma of food reached him. Already hungry, Shin'un couldn't help quickening his pace.
When he opened the door, his mother, Toyoko Hirakawa, had already set the food on the table, along with the bowls and chopsticks.
Shin'un hurried to the bathroom to wash the dust off himself, then sat down at the dining table.
Shinkaku Hirakawa also came upstairs, walked over to the table, and poured himself a cup of sake.
The family gathered around the table and began eating.
Throughout the meal, Shin'un's parents kept asking him all sorts of questions.
Some of those questions were rather bizarre. For example:
"Have you gotten yourself a girlfriend at school?"
Naturally, Shin'un answered no to that sort of question.
But who could have known that the moment Shin'un said no, his father, Shinkaku Hirakawa, would burst out laughing?
"Hahaha! You're already so old, and you still haven't gotten a girlfriend? Back in the day, your old man..."
Before he finished, Shinkaku Hirakawa suddenly remembered that he was sitting at the dining table, with a she-devil right beside him.
"What exactly did his old man do back in the day?" Toyoko Hirakawa asked through gritted teeth.
Shinkaku Hirakawa panicked a little.
"Hehehe, back in the day, didn't his old man meet you, my dear wife?"
The answer Shinkaku Hirakawa considered so clever did nothing to quell Toyoko Hirakawa's anger. Instead, her interrogation only grew fiercer.
Ignoring his father's pleading looks, Shin'un sat to one side and ate in silence.
At home, Shin'un's mother held the highest rank: the "family emperor."
As for Shin'un and his dad, they were, at best, the "family underlings."
Better to let Shinkaku Hirakawa draw the fire. If I join in and bring it down on myself, that won't be good.
The next day, Shin'un finished his daily training early and headed to the Ninja Academy.
He had just sat down in the classroom, opened his shoulder bag, and taken out the books for today's lessons when someone came up beside him.
It was Tsume Inuzuka, the mother of Kiba Inuzuka, a future member of the Konoha 12.
"Hehe, Shin'un, could I ask you to help me with my homework?"
The Konoha Ninja Academy assigned homework too, and just like in his previous life, it covered basic subjects such as mathematics, chemistry, biology, and geography.
Although most of his classmates were very talented at combat, they knew practically nothing about academic subjects like these.
Tsume Inuzuka, standing before Shin'un, was one such example.
"Let me see." Shin'un took the test paper from Tsume Inuzuka.
"Hmm, these are quadratic function problems. Very simple. You do this... then... finally... and you'll get the answer."
Looking at the bewildered, confused expression on Tsume Inuzuka's face, Shin'un waved the paper in his hand.
"Well? Did you get it?"
Seeing Shin'un's expression, which all but said, "These questions are so simple that you should understand after one explanation," Tsume Inuzuka swallowed.
"There might still be a few parts I don't understand..."
Shin'un spread out the paper and looked at Tsume Inuzuka.
"Where?"
"From here to there."
Shin'un watched Tsume Inuzuka's fingertip slide from the beginning of the paper to the end.
Shin'un took a deep breath and looked over the entire paper again.
In his previous life, this paper would have been high school level at most. For Shin'un, who had gone through nine years of compulsory education, it was extremely simple.
In fact, Shin'un had only made it into his current elite class thanks to the extra points from his theory scores. In terms of theory-class rankings alone, even Minato Namikaze in second place lagged far behind him.
Perhaps the Shinobi World, with its exceptionally powerful individuals and constant warfare, lacked fertile ground for academic knowledge to flourish.
Most of the ninja clan descendants in his class had begun strict, meticulous ninja training as children, and clans with long histories also provided instruction in etiquette.
But without exception, none of them placed any importance on their younger generations' grasp of academic knowledge.
Shin'un glanced up at the clock hanging at the front of the classroom and found that there were still ten-odd minutes before class began.
With a deep sigh, Shin'un began explaining the test paper in his hands.
"..."
Creak...
When their homeroom teacher, Mizukawa Masaru, pushed the door open and entered, he was greeted by a strange sight.
Most of the class had gathered together by the windows at the back of the classroom.
From the center of the crowd, he could faintly hear someone explaining a test paper.
"What are you all doing?"
Hearing their teacher, the crowd hurriedly turned to look.
When they saw him standing in the doorway, everyone quickly returned to their seats, revealing Shin'un in their midst.
Holding the test paper, Shin'un gave Mizukawa Masaru a sheepish smile.
Scenes like this had happened several times before. The moment Mizukawa Masaru saw the paper in Shin'un's hands, he knew why everyone had gathered around him.
Shaking his head, Mizukawa Masaru walked straight into the classroom.
Unlike the other times, however, a little red-haired girl followed him into the classroom, looking somewhat shy around strangers.
Kushina Uzumaki?
After stretching out his arm to return the paper to Tsume Inuzuka in the back row, Shin'un had barely turned around before recognizing the girl who had just entered.
Feeling nosy, Shin'un turned to glance at Minato Namikaze on the other side of the classroom.
"We have a transfer student joining us today. She's a girl, and I hope you'll all get along."
"Also, to help you get to know one another faster, we'll spend half the lesson introducing ourselves again."
Then Mizukawa Masaru turned toward Tsume Inuzuka in the corner of the back row.
"Let's start with Tsume Inuzuka."
Tsume Inuzuka froze, then immediately stood up, bared her sharp canine teeth, and pointed her thumb at herself.
"Hello, I'm Tsume Inuzuka. My hobby is raising dogs, I like dogs, and my dream is to become Hokage and have everyone in Konoha raise dogs."
"Hello, I'm Shikaku Nara. My hobby is lying on the grass and watching the clouds, I like sleeping in, and my dream is for every day to be peaceful."
"..."
Soon, everyone in the class had introduced themselves one after another, and it was Kushina Uzumaki's turn at the teaching platform.
Encouraged by Mizukawa Masaru's gaze from the platform, Kushina took a deep breath and stepped to the front, declaring her dream just as Shin'un remembered.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Kushina Uzumaki, and my dream is to become Konoha's first female Hokage!"