"Follow me."
At the base of the stairs leading to the main teaching building, another teacher checked their admission letters. He gave the two boys a long, scrutinizing look before nodding and leading them up.
As they reached the second-floor landing, Tatsuma's sharp eyes caught the crowd waiting in the hallway. They were almost entirely war orphans, with a small handful of children from ordinary civilian families.
They continued to the third floor. Here, the hallway was occupied by children from average families and those equipped with professional-grade ninja gear. There were even a few children from minor ninja clans mixed in.
It wasn't until they reached the fourth floor that the teacher finally stopped. Tatsuma looked down the hall. The crowd here was sparse; every child in sight was either a descendant of a major clan or was decked out in high-end shinobi equipment.
The other Academy teachers stationed outside the classrooms looked surprised when they saw Tatsuma and Minato. To be sent to this floor meant the student had averaged a score of nine or higher in the weapon projection test.
For clan children, this wasn't particularly difficult—most of them had been practicing for two or three years already. But Tatsuma and Minato bore the unmistakable marks of war orphans: they were visibly poor.
Even if they weren't orphans, they were clearly from low-income backgrounds. Children like them rarely had the opportunity to practice with live weapons. Seeing them here was an anomaly.
It wasn't just the teachers; the clan children were also eyeing them with curiosity. To be honest, the stares made Tatsuma feel a bit uncomfortable. Internally, he was still an adult with a sense of pride—a young man who hadn't yet reached the level of zen required to ignore such blatant social posturing.
Minato, however, didn't seem to mind. His anticipation for starting school seemed to have eclipsed everything else.
Tatsuma led Minato toward the classroom closest to the stairs. There were a few other non-clan kids there; Tatsuma had no desire to shove his way into the center of the hallway where the direct-line clan heirs were huddled together in their exclusive circles.
Classes hadn't officially been assigned yet, and social circles hadn't formed. There was no point in forcing himself into a group where he wasn't welcome.
After a short wait, the teachers at the doors seemed to receive a signal. They opened the classrooms simultaneously and ushered the newcomers inside.
"This round will test your proficiency in Chakra Refinement," the teacher said with a half-joking smile once everyone was seated. "I trust none of you managed to get here without knowing how to knead chakra?"
Minato flashed a confident smile, but a second later, he shot a worried glance at Tatsuma.
Tatsuma caught the look and gave a reassuring nod. The instructions for Chakra Refinement had been sent out along with the admission letters. He had been practicing throughout the past month. While he couldn't claim to be a master of efficiency, he was certainly competent.
Chakra was the product of mixing spiritual and physical energies. In truth, everyone in this world—even non-shinobi—possessed chakra; their bodies produced it automatically every second of every day.
Refinement, however, was the act of actively mobilizing and replenishing that energy for use. For beginners, this process required a hand seal.
But it wasn't one of the twelve basic seals. It was the Seal of Confrontation.
The Seal of Confrontation was the universal sign for the start of a spar at the Academy, but it had a practical application: it helped budding ninja focus their refinement more quickly to prepare for combat.
"If there are no questions... begin."
Seeing no objections, the teacher pressed the button on a timer on the podium. In an instant, every student formed the Seal of Confrontation.
For a group of fresh-faced kids, extracting chakra wasn't an instantaneous process. The teacher knew this well, and as the room fell into a concentrated silence, he began to carefully observe each student.
Whoosh—
After a short while, a student from the Sarutobi clan successfully refined his chakra first. A look of "as expected" flashed across the teacher's face.
The teacher nodded to the boy, who responded with a polite, silent nod of his own, making sure not to disturb the others. Clearly, someone in his clan had briefed him on the testing protocol beforehand.
Three minutes passed. Tatsuma finally found the rhythm. As he breathed, an indescribable sensation merged his mental and physical energies. A faint breeze seemed to manifest out of thin air, lightly tousling his mop of white, permed hair.
Tatsuma opened his eyes and looked at the podium. The teacher smiled and nodded at him. It was then that Tatsuma noticed the teacher's flak jacket and undershirt—there was no clan insignia anywhere.
Realizing the man was a commoner who had made it through the ranks, Tatsuma understood the warmth in that smile and returned it with a brilliant one of his own.
A few moments later, Minato also succeeded. Seeing Tatsuma already waiting for him with a smile, Minato gave a helpless little shrug.
Fifteen minutes in, every student in the room had successfully refined chakra. The teacher went around the room, making more marks on their admission letters.
"Now, for the final portion: the written exam!"
The teacher pulled a stack of papers from under the podium. "One for each of you. Pass the rest back. The last student in the row, bring the extras to the front."
The papers moved smoothly through the rows. Once everyone had their copy, the teacher tidied the leftovers and checked the clock. "You have one hour. I trust none of you are foolish enough to try cheating on these questions."
Tatsuma scanned the test. It was remarkably simple: basic literacy questions, a section for writing out the twelve basic hand seals from memory, a fill-in-the-blank section for matching seals to their names, and then the final question…
"Using the 'Will of Fire' as your central theme, describe your outlook on being a shinobi. Write no less than 300 words."
Reading the prompt, Tatsuma's lip curled slightly in a sneer. He had very little respect for this kind of institutionalized indoctrination. However, his hands were far more pragmatic; he immediately flipped to the back and started writing.
Dreams, struggle, comrades, bonds, responsibility, perseverance... He wrapped it all up with a flourish about "Love and Peace." After quickly filling the page with the essay, he glanced at the clock and began casually filling in the simple technical questions at the front.
He did a final check to make sure his name was on the paper just as the timer went off.
"Stop writing," the teacher commanded, standing up. "Clip your admission letter to the top of your test and leave them on your desks. You are dismissed."
"Tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM, the gates will open. You can check the boards to see your class assignments. Lessons begin at 8:00 AM sharp. Do not be late."
Tatsuma followed the instructions and walked out of the classroom with Minato. He noticed that several other rooms—particularly on the second and third floors—were still in the middle of their exams.
On the second floor, Tatsuma could see through the windows that the teacher had only just finished handing out the papers. As he was observing, Minato spoke up.
"Are we training this afternoon, Tatsuma?"
Tatsuma blinked and nodded. "As expected of you—talented and hardworking. If I slack off even a little, I feel like you'll leave me in the dust in the blink of an eye."
"There you go again," Minato laughed. "I'm just so excited for school to start tomorrow that I don't know what else to do with myself."
"Haha, no need to explain. I was going to the training ground anyway."
Tatsuma threw an arm over Minato's shoulder as they left the Academy, heading straight for Training Ground 3.
Meanwhile, back in the classroom, the teacher was grading the papers. He stopped when he reached Tatsuma's essay. After reading it thoroughly three times, he whispered in awe, "Is Konoha finally going to produce another genius on the level of Lord Orochimaru?"
He set the paper aside and picked up Minato Namikaze's. His eyes widened again.
"No... there are two of them!"