Chapter 7: Konoha Year 31—Final Exams
Intercepting Kushina Uzumaki wouldn't be easy.
Mediocrity didn't deserve the Nine-Tails jinchuriki's favor. After earning Kushina's goodwill, he'd need to display enough talent to make the village's power brokers recognize his value.
Otherwise, various "accidents" would coincidentally befall Yoru—at minimum separating him from Kushina, at worst making him disappear entirely.
After all, the Nine-Tails was the strongest Tailed Beast, currently the shinobi world's most powerful strategic weapon. Konoha needed to bind Kushina to the village with chains of emotional bonds. Those chains required quality material.
Minato Namikaze possessed that value in the original series!
However, Minato had only earned Kushina's favor after graduation during the Cloud ninja incident.
If Yoru wanted to intercept Kushina during their academy years, he needed to demonstrate his talent while still a student.
Therefore, before Kushina enrolled as a "transfer student," Yoru had to possess both substantial strength and something impressive enough to amaze certain individuals.
So when exactly had Kushina entered Konoha?
Yoru didn't know for certain.
However, through information revealed in the anime and his observations last term, he could make reasonable deductions.
First, he could confidently rule out Kushina transferring during first or second year.
Six or seven-year-old children were still too short, their faces full of baby fat—completely inconsistent with his memories of young Kushina from the series.
Furthermore, if Yoru remembered correctly, some guy Kushina had beaten up in the original had gone to his already-graduated shinobi brother for backup, only for Kushina to defeat them both.
If they'd been the same year, the possibility of Kushina transferring during third year seemed minimal as well.
Most likely, she'd arrive after third year—whether fourth, fifth, or sixth year remained unknown.
Before Kushina appeared, Yoru had at least three years to grow stronger.
His pen-spinning paused slightly as another flash of inspiration crossed Yoru's mind. He closed his eyes, lost in contemplation.
Only when the class bell rang and the instructor entered did Yoru reopen his eyes and focus on his studies.
In his previous life, the average adult male body contained approximately thirty-six trillion cells.
In this world, children with chakra possessed one hundred thirty trillion cells.
Consequently, children in this world matured absurdly fast—understanding romance at five or six, potentially deployed to battlefields at seven or eight. Even during peacetime, they experienced bloodshed by age twelve.
Similarly, the knowledge they studied at this age was equally ridiculous.
Language and history, medicine and chemistry, code-breaking and more...
These subjects had shattered Yoru's arrogance last term and contributed significantly to his accumulated stress.
If not for his transmigrator advantages and decent background, starting ninja fundamentals training at age six would have given him zero advantage in this world.
Therefore, until he possessed truly self-sufficient power, Yoru couldn't afford to slack off for even a moment.
Whether academic courses or combat training, he refused to lose to anyone. He would keep winning, maintaining first place continuously.
Konoha Year 31, March 20th. Afternoon.
BOOM—
A dull impact like a heavy blow striking a sandbag exploded across the training grounds where Class 1-A conducted exams.
The circle of students suddenly scattered.
A figure flew from the center of the ring, hitting the ground hard and failing to rise.
Witnessing this, Chunin Instructor Yuya, standing beside a man in a white coat, immediately announced: "Match concluded! Winner: Gojo Yoru."
The medical ninja serving as exam proctor and student safety supervisor rushed over to examine the downed student before administering medical ninjutsu.
Many students in the nearby crowd still wore completely bewildered expressions.
"What... what just happened?"
"Didn't Yuya-sensei just announce the start? How did Yusuke suddenly go flying?"
"Body Flicker! Gojo's Body Flicker is incredibly fast!"
"Yoru-kun got even stronger. In first year now, probably only Minato-kun can fight him."
"How does that guy's body even grow? Last year he was only half a head taller than us. Now he's a full head taller! People who don't know better would think he's a fifth or sixth-year student. How are we supposed to beat this guy? It's not fair!"
"Tall, fast, strong—no wonder the upperclassmen don't dare provoke him!"
"Can't even see him move. If I ever get matched against Gojo in the future, I'm just surrendering immediately."
The murmured discussions remained quiet, but both male and female students stole fearful glances at Yoru, who stood with hands in his pockets.
Standing a full head taller than his peers, expression blank, Yoru resembled an invincible demon lord radiating black aura.
After forming the Seal of Reconciliation with Yusuke—who'd received treatment and caught his breath but now trembled uncontrollably from fear—Yoru left the academy without a word or backward glance.
Yuya didn't stop him.
If Yoru had departed immediately after defeating Yusuke without looking back, Yuya would have felt deeply concerned, perhaps even considering requesting the Hokage assign a psychological counselor.
But after sending Yusuke flying, Yoru hadn't left immediately. He'd stood waiting for the result, completing the Seal of Reconciliation before departing.
In his peers' eyes, Gojo Yoru was a cruel demon lord.
In the eyes of adults like Yuya, he was simply a child with an awkward personality who struggled to express himself.
Perhaps right now, Yoru felt guilty about not controlling his strength properly.
Today marked the third-term final exams for first through fifth years. In a few days, the sixth years would face their graduation assessment.
Sixth-year graduation requirements changed annually—pass and you graduate.
Meanwhile, the third-term finals for years one through five were called the "Annual Grand Examination."
After this exam concluded, results would be posted on the bulletin board when the new academic year began.
Simultaneously, based on comprehensive scores across all three terms, the academy would select five students—one from each grade level across all classes—to serve as exemplars for the entire student body.
These exemplars were known as Chief Students.
Though the final taijutsu assessment hadn't finished, Class 1-A students already knew who their Chief Student would be.
This year's first-year class contained no members of the Uchiha or Hyuga clans.
These two prestigious families controlled important departments and possessed the privilege of training their own heirs independently.
Clan members sent to the academy were either ordinary members whose talent even their own clan dismissed, or descendants of clan leadership—essentially "hostages" meant to reassure the Hokage and Konoha's leadership.
Only when these leadership heirs received education in the Will of Fire did the village's upper echelon feel secure.
Of course, these two clans occasionally sent genuine prodigies to the ninja academy to establish their presence—first displaying talent and strength, then rapidly graduating early, making peers acutely aware of the gulf separating them from prestigious bloodlines.
Unfortunately, this year produced no such prodigies.
However, in Yuya's eyes, both Gojo Yoru and Minato Namikaze—despite lacking powerful bloodline limits—possessed talent equal to any member of those prestigious clans or great ninja families.