Not being old enough to join the ninja academy as a pupil did not mean I was prohibited from visiting the place, even if I kept my distances, simply observing from beyond the premised how the older boys and girls' outside lessons went.
At first, I had come out of curiosity while busy mapping every part of the village for later use, but seeing whom was teaching the class had made sure I would be coming back regularly.
Not only did I trust fully in the teacher's ability and mastery of the Shinobi Arts, I knew there was nobody better to leech information from when it came to the absolute basics and other theoretical knowledge.
Ebisu might have been a complete pervert and a pretty weak Shinobi, but I had no doubt the man was a high quality teacher and deserving of respect for his expertise.
Not only had he been handpicked by the Hokage to teach and protect his grandson from a young age, he had been allowed to be the Jonin instructor of the boy as a Genin, as well as had Kakashi's seal of approval to teach Naruto the basics of the Ninja Arts by Kakashi during the Chunin Exam.
Sure, that last part was a little suspect, considering how useless Kakashi had turned out to be as a teacher, but I refused to believe he would actually screw over his student by having him study under someone that despised him or who would try to sabotage him.
Ebisu had been a student of Choji's father, Chouza and had been on the same Genin team as Might Guy, after all. There was no doubt in my mind Kakashi knew him, or at least of him and his character fairly well to entrust his students to the pervert's teachings and that was good enough for me to accept Ebisu as the perfect candidate for me to learn from.
He had been somewhat of a jerk to the real Uzumaki Naruto, but that might actually have been due to him being somewhat snobbish and disapproving of Naruto's abhorrent behavior and the bad influence he could have been for Konohamaru, rather than as a result of simply being a Jinchuriki.
Now came the harder part, however, convincing the man that I was actually worth his time and that he should train me.
Today, like the previous days I had observed, the children were doing physical conditioning rather than any form of spar or Ninjutsu training, which was fine by me as it let me see the exercises I had read about be executed in practice.
Running, jumping, lunges, push ups, sit ups, planks as well as pull ups, with Ebisu seemingly concentrating more on his students always keeping the correct form throughout the exercises, rather than the amount of reps or laps they were doing, which was to be expected, as these exercises would follow them for the rest of their career, so they were better off learning them well now.
Most of the gym exercises were classics from my previous life as well and I was confident I could probably do a decent job replicating on my own due to my own interest in them and how often I had watched training videos in morbid fascination in the past, but the running part was very unintuitive to me.
I had read somewhere that the reason ninja ran using the particular method commonly referred to as the "Naruto-run" on Earth was due to it being the optimal way to run while holding a sharp weapon in a case of a fall and to avoid injuries due to erratic arm movements, but apparently aerodynamics also played a major part in the adoption of this system.
For most people, their maximum running speed wasn't much impacted when they ran anyway they preferred, but for Shinobi who used chakra to augment their muscles and had to cover gigantic distances by foot, the difference between Naruto-running and regular running could net anywhere between a five to thirty minutes shortening of travel time when going somewhere far, like Suna or Kumo.
Not that anyone went from Konoha to Kumo these days, the last skirmishes of the war still being underway.
Still, back to the children running around, I paid close attention to Ebisu correcting them one after the other, showing them the correct form and raising or lowering their arms until they were at the optimal twelve degrees angle from the ground for maximum downforce.
Apparently, it was also very important that one thrusts their head forward while running to achieve the best visibility and avoid unnecessary head bobbing which could result in injury at high speeds.
All in all, the lesson was quite informative for me and I was much more confident in my ability to wing it if push came to shove, but unlike every other day I had observed him teach, I did not leave when he dismissed the students, but kept staring at him instead even as he busied himself with jotting down the scores and adding his personal notes on the progress of his charges.
"You do realize, it is very rude to spy on others?" Ebisu suddenly addressed me without turning around, and for the first time, I entered the academy grounds, getting closer to the man.
"My apologies, sir." I said, judging cold professionalism and maturity to be the way to interact with him and get what I wanted.
"What do you want?" He asked once again without turning in my direction, still writing in his notebook.
"I wanted to ask sir, if you would be open to training me if I submitted an official request for a D-Rank Mission at the Hokage's office." I said, managing to make my answer a statement of intent, rather than a question.
Apparently this was the right thing to say to pique his interest as the man turned towards me, an eyebrow raised, fixing his creepy glasses even as he eyed me thoughtfully.
"Aren't you a bit too young to join the Academy?" he asked and I nodded my agreement. "Why not wait until you are of age?"
"You know who I am, sir. You know what I am." I started speaking and his back straightened up, clearly he wasn't aware I knew of my status.
"I am a war deterrent." I continued before he had the time to interrupt. "And yet, there have been three world wars in the past six generations. I am not blind, nor a fool. There will be more bloodshed in my lifetime."
Ebisu had sobered up but remained silent, giving my impromptu speech all of his attention.
"When the time comes, my opponents will be on my level." I said gravely, and this was true, a Jinchuriki was a trump card to be sent against the elite, whether that be a fellow Jinchuriki or a Kage. "Any mistake, inefficiencies or flaw in my abilities will result with my having the blood of my comrades on my hands."
Ebisu was now grim and in a sense, so was I. These weren't empty words for me even if I did not believe all of them.
"I was entrusted with the future of this village, and I will not shirk off my duties." I declared with false passion. "Being good enough, or having a satisfactory level isn't acceptable for someone in my position. I cannot afford to be average. I NEED to be the best. Lives will depend on me. I can't just wait until I am old enough to start training."
The pervert standing in front of me nodded and I had to suppress a smirk when I saw him being apparently moved by my speech.
I believed most of what I had said, but more so in the context of fighting Akatsuki and Kaguya, rather than the other villages, but the man was so deep into the nationalistic propaganda that I was confident it would still resonate strongly with him.
"Why did you choose me to teach you?" He asked and I almost snorted at him. I hadn't expected this man of all people to have feelings of inadequacy... Actually scratch that, now that I thought about it, he had bragged to Naruto about being an elite instructor and Shinobi far too much for it not to come from a place of insecurity.
"I... enjoyed your teaching style?" I answered with a shrug.
It wasn't really a lie, he was indeed very thorough in his instruction and I had come observe his classes often enough to ascertain he was always annoying over even the tiniest of details, which was exactly the kind of teacher best suited for my particular needs.
"I see." He fixed his glasses again in that annoying manner every smug person wearing glasses had done since the dawn of time. "There's no need to submit a D-Rank request, I will train you free of charge." He declared.
I made it a point to beam at him and thank him profusely for his generosity, and for once I didn't have to fake my gratitude. It was genuinely nice of him to offer to help without compensation, doubly so when he hadn't expressed any disdain or mockery towards me for my furry little problem.
"What is it exactly you require assistance with?" He asked after having basked enough in my repeated bows and words of praise for him.
"I mostly need help with learning the correct forms for how to do physical training and the different hand signs." I told him, somewhat unwillingly.
It had been difficult for me to lower my demands and keep it to only the smallest of things, both fearing a rejection due to my age and not wanting to have too many pans on the burner at the same time.
The way I saw it, I firmly believed in the 'You teach a man how to fish and you feed him for the rest of his life' philosophy.
It might be interesting to have Ebisu teach me everything he could, but it was much more beneficial to me if he showed me what to do so I could train on my own whenever I wanted.
"Alright." Ebisu agreed easily with my very reasonable demands. "Are you free Saturday mourning?"
I nodded happily. I was basically free every single day of the year.
"Let's meet here from eight in the morning to noon. It should be enough to show you the ropes." He declared, opening his notebook and jotting down the location and time of our lesson in it.
"Thank you, sir. I am looking forward to it." I bowed to him again, before bidding him a good day and leaving the Academy with a pep to my step.
Today had been a good day