The day for entering the academy came, the entrance exam is about to start. On the big square in front of the academy entrance gathered a lot of people, including Yuta, Chitose and 3 other children from Yuta's orphanage that will also be enrolling this year.
More than half of the gathered crowd is children that are mostly slightly older than Yuta, the other part is the adults accompanying them.
Around 70% of the children are civilian looking, without any clan signs. All the clan children are gathered in a smaller group in the center of the square. There Yuta spotted some Inuzuka and Akimichi clan members for example.
While waiting there for the entrance exam Yuta was feeling bored, he was dragged here an hour ago and now just to stand here is becoming boring for him.
'I wish I had bigger area of my sensory abilities, now I can sense others chakra only in a 20m radius, and from the place I'm standing I can only sense some civilians chakra, and it's a very small amounts compared to my current reserves. There's not even a single genin around me to compare myself to in terms of chakra reserve capacity.'
'From how it looks like it's around 300 children gathered here. In the series Naruto class only has around 30 students. From how it looks like more than half of the currently gathered children will enroll this year, so it will be like around 200 students, that's quite a lot.'
'This will be the second new batch of students after the Nine-Tails attack, so they might just let a lot more children enroll than usual because of the shortage of shinobi after that a lot of them died in the attack.'
'And with that I will most likely end up in a mediocre class that most likely wouldn't be taught very well.'
'But If I display good strength and stamina at the exam I can actually end up in a class where the most talented children would gather. There is only one problem with that – I don't want to stand out too much at this point, If Danzo starts recruiting from academy, he might forcefully take me in to the Root. He likes to recruit talented civilians with no one to stand for them.'
'It would be better to take the slow and safe approach at this point. If I want to try a different approach later on to get better results, then I will be able to return back in time and just do so. But for now, safety will be the top priority. After all – time is on my side here, hehe.'
"Hey Yuta, are you exited?" Kenta, the boy around the same age from the same orphanage that's about to enroll with Yuta, interrupted Yuta's thoughts about his plans with stupid grin on his face. Kenta is a little taller than Yuta, well, almost all children here are slightly taller than him.
"Yes, I am." Yuta replied in a neutral tone and a slight annoyance in the voice.
The other 2 guys that are standing beside Kenta, they are Kiyoshi and Saki, Saki is only girl among them. While Kenta's attitude is excited, it's not the same with the others, Kiyoshi looks at Yuta as if Yuta owes him money, and Saki seems like following Kiyoshi and copied everything he does, including his attitude towards Yuta.
Kiyoshi makes an angry face "Kenta, leave him alone! That arrogant idiot believes he is better than everyone else, don't waste your time speaking to him!"
Saki looks at Yuta with disgust on her face "Yea! Don't go near that idiot!"
Kenta puts a sheepish smile on his face "Sorry for that, good luck to you on the test." He says and goes away.
'As if I care about you and your insults, you are just some background noise for me, nothing more.' Yuta thinks to himself, as he looks away already completely forgotten about those 3 guys.
It's safe to say that almost all children at the orphanage don't like Yuta. Yuta never wasted his time with other children and ignored them completely, spending his time on his training and walking out of the orphanage for 2 hours every day.
And he is the only child who is allowed by caretakers to go out by himself, because he builds the reputation of a diligent, mature and responsible kid with him never skipping 2 hours of running every day and never arguing with orphanage staff and have overall some kind of mature aura around him.
Almost all other children see him as a cold and arrogant person and hate him. Well, Kenta never was like that. Kenta tried to befriend Yuta multiple times, and while being coldly rejected, never showed any negative feelings towards him. Well, Kenta never showed any negativity towards anyone at all. But not that Yuta cared about anything like that.
For Yuta all the people at the orphanage are just an annoyance that he must endure and there is no other way around that. Well, truth is that Yuta doesn't remember their names and doesn't know them even at this point despite them being the only 3 of the children that enrolled at the academy with him this year from his orphanage. Yuta couldn't care any less about those 3.
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It's hard to befriend and spend time with about 5–6-year-old children when you lived for almost 30 in the previous life. Those children are just too immature for Yuta to give them any attention.
As a couple more dozens of minutes passed, a group of around 20 shinobi appeared in front of the academy entrance facing the rest of the crowd. Then one of them quickly announced the coming entrance test and the rest of shinobi organized the movement of the children to the academy training ground nearby.
Yuta and the other 3 followed one of the groups and a shinobi to the training ground. On the way Yuta saw how the group of clan children were led to different direction from where all other groups go.
'Looks like clan members will be examined separately, or even most likely they will be entering the academy directly without the exam. Well, not that I care about this favoritism at all. There is no way I can fail this small test now.'
As everyone gathered on the training grounds watched over by shinobi, one of the shinobi announced:
"Before you enter academy you will be tested on your stamina and overall endurance. The academy doesn't need weaklings and those that can't keep up! For the test, this year you will run laps around this training ground for 2 hours straight! Those who fall too far behind when time ends will be sent home!"
'How convenient! It's like I was known what the test will be all along! The current test for me is just the normal morning routine and nothing more.'
As Yuta laughed in his mind about how convenient this test is because he skipped his 2 hours of running every day today, Kenta and others started to look at him with a strange expression. But Yuta was unaware of that.
"For those that already mastered any D rank ninjutsu they can skip the test!" Shinobi continued.
As he said that, 3 guys come forward from the crowd and claimed that they know the required ninjutsu and want to skip the test.
'Only 3 children out of more than 200 of them knew a basic level ninjutsu? Well, they will probably be placed in the elite's class.'
As those 3 children are led away by some shinobi to test them separately on their ninjutsu, others are gathered in a large group for the running laps and the same shinobi loudly announced the start of the test.
A large group of more than 200 children start running around the training grounds, and some shinobi also start running beside them, closely observing them.
Yuta starts running without any rush at his normal pace and not paying attention to the group of almost half of the children that start running much faster than the rest, probably competing for the first place.
As half an hour passed, Yuta stayed in the middle of the overall contestants, as he continued to run at his normal pace, not fast and not slow. Most of those who started with a fast speed are already exhausted and fallen somewhat behind, and now most of them are even behind Yuta, who stayed in the middle.
When 2 hours ended, Yuta finished his running by being somewhere around 50th place of overall contestants, while around 50 of the children gave up on the test, and another 50 is fell too far behind the others. So only slightly more than a hundred children are more or less fit and have good stamina, and among those Yuta placed himself right in the middle. That was completely intentional.
If Yuta wanted, he probably would have been able to score if not the first place but definitely among the top 5. He just doesn't want to stand out too much and draw attention.
As the test ended and results were collected by observing shinobi, the result was announced. Those who gave up failed the test, half of those who fell too much behind the others also failed, all the others passed and now they are officially the students of the shinobi academy.
'Well, I didn't think that those three from my orphanage would also pass the test! That was unexpected, they never trained at all as I did. Kenta finished in the position only slightly higher than those that fell too far behind, and Kiyoshi and Saki finished far behind Kenta but still was accepted to the academy.'
The academy will start in two days from now on. Yuta and other orphans that needed a free apartment provided by the academy were gathered in a group and all others were free to go. There are total of around 30 children with Yuta included in that group.
Then they are separated into small groups and guided to their respective apartments by a shinobi leading each group.
A shinobi that was led by Yuta's small group of 5 children took them outside of the academy and after 10 minutes' walk, they arrived at the 3 stories building with rows of doors on each floor. Then one by one the shinobi led them to their respective apartments. When Yuta's turn came, he was led to a door on the third floor.
Shinobi opened the door and came in, Yuta followed.
The room was small, about 15 square meters, with a bed, desk and a small kitchen area all of that squeezed in that tiny room. There is also a part of the room that is cut off by walls with a door and that is probably the bathroom.
'Well, that is tiny and minimalistic, but if you ask me, this is a thousand times better than the orphanage!'
"There, here is your key to the apartment. Academy starts in two days at 8am, don't be late. Here is your monthly allowance of 1000ryo. You will be able to collect your allowance at the start of each month at the academy from your assigned class teacher."
"Besides free apartments and allowance academy also provides ration bars, you also can collect them as you collect your allowance."
"Thanks!" Yuta said slightly bowing to the shinobi as he turned around and left the apartments, closing the door after himself.
'Well, that will be my home for a long time it seems. Not very comfortable but this is what I get from academy for free? It's better than nothing, I guess. Leaving the orphanage is already a huge upgrade!'
'Hmm… It's already evening, and I don't have anything to eat, it's time to find a grocery store and buy some food for the first time in this world!'