Chapter 4

The next morning, a genin arrived at his home with a missive. It stated that Askuna was admitted and, due to his unparalleled progress and knowledge, he would be placed in the graduating class.

Askuna reassured his parents once more that everything would be okay by demonstrating his ability to body flicker, teleporting from their perspective, from one end of the room to the other, which effectively silenced them. The following day, he went to the school, entered the assigned class, and found himself stopped by the teacher to stand next to Kushina at the podium.

The class snickered at Kushina's hair, and then there were some comments about Askuna's height. Sensei came to the front of the class and spoke.

"Hello class, it's me, your favorite Daioku-sensei," he silenced the murmurs, nodding. "I see most of you passed the previous year, which comes as a surprise in many cases," he mentioned, looking at some troublemakers, "but it is relieving to see that when you have to, you can manage, barely." He paused, then added, "This year, we will work on perfecting the skills you've learned before, as well as learning the first three academy jutsu."

Continuing, he warned, "However, don't grow complacent, as you will soon see, this year will be the hardest one, where you have to give your all if you want to pass and join a genin team."

"Additionally," he gestured at Askuna and Kushina, "here are your new classmates. First, Askuna; due to his exceptional abilities, he was placed several years higher than his age would otherwise suggest. Don't underestimate him."

"Go on, introduce yourself," he patted Askuna on the shoulder.

Askuna smiled and waved to the class, noticing Minato's gaze and that of some others. He introduced himself: "My name is Askuna Megumi. I am the peerless genius, the greatest prodigy to have ever lived and gonna live." He then stepped back and with a smug grin looked at the homeroom teacher.

Everyone sweat-dropped, expecting more from the introduction. Then the laughter started, dissing him out, like "Greatest prodigy, my ass! This runt probably still is in the diaper!" Boisterous laughter followed. However, the teacher coughed and gestured at the seats, "We'll talk after class, please take a seat, Askuna."

As he was walking to a free seat, he was stopped by Kushina pointing at him and shouting "Hey you!" then she pointed to the class "And you, too! I'm Kushina Uzumaki, and as I always say, I will become the first female Hokage!"

More snickers arose from the class, but Askuna stayed put, envisioning an interesting scene unfolding as Minato stood and declared, "I also want to become a great Hokage, respected by all the villagers."

The stare-down between them continued, so Askuna made it a three-way standoff by folding his arms and declaring, "I hear your vows, and I can't ignore them! Show me your determination, and how worthy you are of this title, as I declare that I, the one destined to be the mightiest in Heaven and Earth, will be the one judging you!"

"Mightiest in Heaven and Earth! Pfft, he's a total weirdo!" the students started to laugh at him, and the whole class chanted "weirdo!" while the stare-down persisted. Minato appeared more confused than anything, and Kushina shot him a rivaling glare.

Askuna nodded and went to his seat as Sensei Daioku silenced the class. Kushina took the only available seat beside him and leveled him with a glare before losing interest when he folded his arms and closed his eyes.

The lessons were boring; he didn't listen to them even a tiny bit. Instead, he practiced sensing chakra with other sensing clones, as it was the perfect environment for doing so. Well, maybe not perfect, as a completely black soundproof room, with people outside of it flaring chakra would be much better, but you like what you have, not what you want.

Then there was the mid-day break, and he was assaulted by brats who wanted to have his attention, Kushina was too in the back of the class, but then someone insulted him and tried to push him. So, he used his movement technique to appear behind the guy and exerted extra force on his shoulders, splaying him on the ground with a simple downward motion of his hand.

This left everyone stunned, and he patted the frightened boy on top of his head, lifting it a little and saying, "Next time, I'll break something of yours. Got it?" Askuna warned while applying pressure on his hand again and pushing him painfully to the ground.

He got the message, everyone did, and when he returned to his seat, no one tried to bully him again. It seemed that Kushina's bullies also lost interest. Also, some of them were scared now. 'Well, happens.' shrugged Askuna.

Afterward, two brave, but still random, boys approached him and asked about his dreams. He answered, "Graduate the fastest." But then, he asked them about their dreams, and most gave him generic responses.

Someone also inquired about how he moved so fast, to which he replied that he used chakra and shrugged. Neither of the two familiar characters asked him anything. He briefly contemplated how, in five years, Kakashi would be blazing through this school.

Kakashi would graduate at 5 in canon, but Askuna is going to have graduation for the class some months after becoming six. Well, that is if he doesn't try to take an earlier exam, maybe making the record of graduating in three months, three weeks?

Thinking about it, he needed to learn how to throw things, practice Leaf Taijutsu, and perform Academy Three. Therefore, he asked aloud, "Hey, does any of you know how to perform the Academy Three?"

The murmurs stopped, and someone deigned to answer him. A generic boy number 2 said, "No, we'll receive instructions on them only this year."

Askuna replied, "Oh, thanks, but has anyone here learned it from someone else? Like parents, older siblings, or by themselves?"

Some students looked at one another, not knowing the answer, but a random girl raised her hand and said, "Um, my mom taught me them… Why are you asking?"

"Oh, cool, could you show me? Because I'm not sure what they are," asked Askuna.

The girl processed it for a second, before replying, "Um, yes, I suppose I can, though I haven't perfected them yet."

"Thanks, I'll buy you some juice for the effort," said Askuna, giving her a thumbs-up and walking over to her.

It seemed that he wasn't the only one interested, as the whole class gathered around the girl, making her rather uncomfortable. But faced with the expectant gazes of her classmates, she decided to start the demonstration and not disappoint the audience.

"So this is clone jutsu.", she slowly performed hand seals. His clones noted the observations in his mindscape. She performed a botched transformation into one of her female classmates.

"Wow, you're good at it," praised Askuna, which made her happy. Then she demonstrated the other two jutsu, creating clones and substituting herself with a chair.

"Thanks again. It seems you worked hard on those, congratulations," added Askuna after the performance ended.

'Hmm, maybe I will make her immortal as thanks or something? It might be amusing,' he mused.

"Thanks," the girl replied, blushing from the attention she was getting as people praised her. Askuna waved one last time before returning to his seat.

Afterward, Askuna honestly forgot that he was supposed to meet with his homeroom teacher and went home, jumping through the window the moment classes ended.

Later that day, with the help of his mental clones he performed all three academy basic techniques seamlessly, or rather seal-lessly. Well, the clones emulated the hand-seals, by chakra manipulation, and it was quite slow in execution, but it would all come together with further practice. So that was okay. What he needed next was to learn the Leaf kata and how to throw things.

His parents asked him how the academy was, etc., but nothing else noteworthy happened, so let's skip the filler to the next day.

The following day, they gathered in the morning near the sports court to perform stretches and kata. His inexperience was quickly spotted by an assistant instructor, and he received instructions on proper technique when performing Taijutsu. To be honest, Askuna struggled at first, which elicited many snickers from his classmates, but with 15 coaches helping him train, each providing their own thoughts and corrections, his progress went smoothly.

Nevertheless, the time came to move to the sparring part of the class. He faced off against a random male student #3, who was quickly defeated by Askuna moving at above-chunin speeds. With one not-too-painful kick to the stomach, he sent the much larger boy out of the ring.

They reconciled, though the loser had a furious look in his eyes. When Askuna glanced at his teacher, the Chunin scribbled something in his notebook.

He shrugged and went to sit in the circle of children, watching how others fought and comparing their techniques to the previously shown katas. The biggest boon was that the clones in his mindscape could also emulate those katas and gain experience. Even though it was an illusory world, it tried to be a detailed representation of the real one, therefore to some extent, the movement of the clones was accurate.

The children were rather disciplined and didn't talk to each other while observing the fights. 'Or are they frightened by my speed?' mused Askuna, noticing several glances from time to time.

Aside from that, social circles had already formed. He felt it was strange to butt into one, only to leave in a few months. Kushina was also with some of the girls, so it seemed she had integrated well despite what he had assumed he would see.

After sparring, they moved on to the throwing range. He needed personal coaching again, but this time no one laughed at him.

His training was slower, and he avoided making any insanely fast throws for now, focusing more on technique and accuracy. He could emulate taijutsu katas in his mind, but throwing things and emulating gravity was out of the question, as well as using chakra in his mindscape to do things. He would either need to spend more time perfecting the realism of his world or manifest the shadow clones in real life.

Nevertheless, in the afternoon, they returned to classes and were introduced to the Academy Three. There was a lot of explanation behind the henge jutsu and how it worked. In the end, the children were asked to give it a try.

Askuna immediately transformed into the teacher without using hand seals, which garnered looks of awe from everyone. But then, the girl from yesterday called him out, "But you said yesterday that you didn't know this jutsu!"

'No immortality for you, miss,' thought Askuna, but he replied, "I learned all three in an hour, yesterday at home."

"Askuna, go to the center of the class and show everyone," ordered his teacher.

"Sure." He went and performed it again, transforming into the same chunin that Sensei had transformed into earlier.

It backfired on the teacher, as he hadn't been paying close attention to Askuna's previous performance, so he thought he had missed him making hand seals. However, it was done without them, which was not the example he wanted to show the class.

Askuna's transformation even looked cleaner than the teacher's; while the teacher had some smoke when transforming, Askuna's was an almost instant appearance change without smoke.

Understandably, his new classmates were mostly jealous and in awe. His teacher also congratulated him, though he asked him to stay after class.

After class, the headteacher Daioku gestured for Askuna to wait until all the other students had left.

When they were alone, he asked, "Did you really learn it yesterday?"

"Yes, yesterday I asked a classmate to show me how to do it, then I learned it instantly and reduced the hand seals necessary to zero, as I felt they were redundant for something so easy," acknowledged Askuna, nodding his head.

"Which classmate?" asked Daioku for clarification.

"Mayuri," answered Askuna.

Daioku chuckled and shook his head, saying, "It's impossible to master the henge so quickly, well, not without great chakra control. You see why I think you're lying to me, right? But it's still impressive that you've managed to perfect it to such a degree."

'Well, I technically learned those three techniques for a few days if someone counted my several hours with an additional twenty brains helping me perform and analyze them,' thought Askuna, but he said, "I did learn it in an hour. Besides, have you heard how I beat the head proctor in the entrance exam?"

Daioku smiled sadly and said, "Yes, you're fast, I acknowledge that, but I've seen your kata. But let's come back to the topic, I don't believe you learned it in an hour. Show me the other two jutsu."

Askuna performed them. He created three clones seal-lessly, extending from his body without any smoke. Then, after staring at the chair for three seconds, he substituted with it in a similar manner.

"Impressive again," nodded the teacher, placing a hand on his chin and thinking before saying, "Try this E-rank jutsu; it creates a small ember of fire, useful for creating a campfire or igniting something." He performed three hand seals and spewed a small flame from his mouth that flew half a meter before disappearing.

Askuna observed it and mused, 'It's inhaling and expelling breath. I can't do this in parallel with my mental clones... or could I?'

Askuna pondered the technique for several seconds, thinking about the different sub-steps needed to perform it. His team of clones started drawing states, first the accumulation phase where one would accumulate chakra, probably in their breath. He doubted it involved oxygen manipulation.

Then there was some kind of spewing it out, followed by ignition as it went through the fingers, like a lighter. It appeared like a ball of gas ignited from a flamethrower after leaving it.

His clones analyzed the hand seals and what they could mean, now the hardest part is for chakra to perform the parts of the Justu's with the right intent. He tried a first-hand seal, which is used as an accumulation of chakra in his breath.

Then he inhaled and exhaled the air. He tried again, taking a few deep breaths and now forgoing the use of visible hand seals. With fifty helpers, he attempted to gather more chakra in his breath and have it resemble a swirling ball.

After several breaths, where he looked as if he was thinking, the multiple intents holding it together succeeded, so he tried creating a smaller ball, that will be denser, as he didn't want to spew a fireball by mistake, though there was also a possibility, that denser ball would expand. On the other hand, he didn't want to create an ember that would disappear too quickly or fall apart.

So, he concentrated on creating a slightly concentrated ball without using too much chakra. Then came the second hand seal. He also tried it once visibly, seemingly falling into contemplation after using it, while his clones inside him started to virtually perform the hand seal with the same effect, which would be about him spewing the ball faster and faster.

Then came the third hand seal, which was about ignition. The moment it left his mouth, it should ignite.

He raised his fingers in the traditional Uchiha style, performing the hand seal in front of his mouth. Fifty minds concentrated on visualizing it burning when leaving his mouth.

He kept his hand there, as it seemed that even if he performed a virtual hand seal, he still needed to blow at it, which he would eliminate later, but it looked cool for now. He took breaths through his nose and exhaled them through his mouth, each time activating the two previous steps and trying to activate the third one.

The main focus now was for his chakra to understand that it could change its nature to fire nature, or ignite. Let's see if fifty entities of his strength had enough imagination to let it happen with at least one of them.

He and 20 of the clones were improving the process with each iteration, pushing the boundaries of concentration of this chakra ball as well as the speed of release, and the metaphorical burn which was visualized as a friction-creating spark on his finger.

He finally spat out a fist-sized ball of flame, which traveled ahead for several meters and spilled on the floor in several places, leaving small black burn marks.

"Well, color me surprised." commented his teacher, holding his sides and staring at him, like at some wonder child. "You're here a second day, and already destroying the school's property."

Askuna shrugged, not saying anything.

Daioku laughed hard at that and said, "You're one scary kid. Okay then, I want to see what you can achieve with this jutsu further. Train it over the week and show me the results on Monday."

But before Askuna could go - "However, you didn't stay yesterday as I asked you, why is that?" He stopped Askuna, now all traces of fun lost from his face.

"I forgot," answered Askuna.

"Really?" asked his sensei.

"Yes, it was boring, and I wanted to already go home."

"Alright, I wanted to tell you not to be too conceited, but it seems you won't listen anyway." Sensei Daioku sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Okay, go home and show me what you'll have achieved next week. You can read what you want in subject classes with academics and jutsu, but you're still required to pay attention to practical classes, and also don't interrupt your classmates." Sensei went into full lecture mode.

"Okay," answered Askuna, but before he could go, the man karate-chopped his head and said, "Aaaaannnd be more humble! Be polite to your classmates! Listen to your superiors!"

"Understood?" the chunin asked.

Askuna looked at the chunin and disappeared in the fastest shunshin he could make through the window. The chunin blinked a bit before shaking his head and going to the teacher's lounge.