Chapter 36: 2nd Year

After returning from Shikkotsu Forest, Tsunade immediately asked Mito to teach her the Strength of a Hundred Seal so that she could begin storing her Yang Chakra. After 36 hours of studying the seal, Tsunade was finally able to understand it and immediately applied it. While she knew she wouldn't be able to fill it up just yet, she guess that if she doesn't use any chakra for about a week then it should be close to full.

After learning the seal, Tsunade went to bed so that she could be prepared for school the next day.

Waking up, Tsunade went straight out the door after taking care of her daily nessecities.

She arrived at the school around the same time as her friends as they all ran to each other and began to talk to each other on their way to class.

"Where have you been Tsuna? You missed our weekly spar. Although I did get to beat up Jiraiya so I guess it was worth it." Kenta said with a smug smile.

"You LIAR!! I beat you with my hands tied behind my back." Jiraiya screamed back as the two began a headbutting contest.

"Are you ok Tsunade?" Orochimaru asked concerned as he saw she was much more quiet than usual.

"Yeah, just a lot on my mind." Tsunade answered back.

"Just let us know if we are able to help." Sakumo added as the group entered the classroom.

They then went to their seats in the back of the class and just as they sat down, Yoma entered and closed the door behind him.

"Today we will first be going over the origin of the Leaf, as well as starting to learn the tree walking exercise. After that we will have our weekly spars again."

Tsunade began to daydream as she had learned most of this information from Hashirama when he was teaching her. She paid little attention until she heard Yoma say "Alright, follow me outside so we can begin the tree walking exercise."

The class followed Yoma with some looking very nervous while others looked highly confident.

One of the things Tsunade had noticed in her time at the Academy was that it was much harder than the Academy that was in the anime. While the theoretical knowledge was easier due to there not being much history in the village just yet, many other courses were highly difficult and taught more advanced practices like tree climbing and lower ranked ninjutsu.

She also noted that there was currently not a fixed term for graduation like in the anime where you have to go for a certain amount of years before you can pass if weren't applying for early graduation, which also didn't exist yet.

The Academy currently worked as a building ground to prepare the kids for after they turned 12. While the village currently advocated that it wouldn't send children under the age of 12 for jobs like defending the border or assassinating important figures for other countries, that didn't mean it was the same once you turned 12. After reaching that age, you would be giving all sorts of missions that range from espionage to assassination to infiltration. So while Konoha advocates itself as a kind and peaceful village, they still have not stopped preparing for the inevitable war that everyone knows is coming. But that is simply the grim nature of the Shinobi World.

But as Tsunade thought back to the low standards for the Academy in the canon, she came to a few guesses with each having an equal amount of chance of it being true. 'It could be that Hiruzen and Danzo weakened the level of the Academy so that only true geniuses would shine through and increase the prestige of the leaf. They could have also done this so that they could increase and compensate for the manpower they lost during the 9 Tailed Fox attack. It also could be due to the Civilian Council lessening the requirements to allow more civilian shinobi to become genin.'

"Now move your chakra onto the soles of your feet and walk up the trees." Yoma said and broke Tsunade out of her thoughts.

Tsunade's group showed the quickest reaction as they all walked up the trees without any problem causing Yoma to give them a look of approval.

Many knew about the training group that they were a part of and how ahead of their peers they were, so it didn't shock them that they all had mastered it.

However not all of them felt that way like Himichi who thought to himself 'How dare that red eyed bastard try to upstage a Hyuga! It seems I'll have to put him in his place.'

Hiruko simply lamented his fate as he thought 'I wish I could train with them.'

But the rest began to try their hardest to get to the top of the tree. The person who got their first surprised them all as it was Dan.

Tsunade looked at the situation with curiosity in her eyes as she knew this was the person she fell in love with in the original timeline.

She had paid attention to him ever since the beginning of the Academy last year as he showed himself to be a prodigy. His ability to learn and understand the things they were taught were incredibly great as was his strength that he showed in spars. Tsunade had wanted to offer him and Might Duy to join their study group but she hadn't had the chance too.

'It seems I'll need to ask most of the people in my class if they want to join.' Tsunade thought to herself.

As was said before, most of the students in this class were prodigies and extremely talented, so Tsunade thought it would be best to try to gather them under one group to try and keep Danzo in check in the future. 'Even he wouldn't want to anger this many high level ninja.' Tsunade thought.

As more and more of them began to perfect the tree walking technique, with the only one who didn't being Duy since he doesn't seem to be able to use chakra that well, Yoma began sending them towards the training grounds.

After the final person got it (Which was a Nara since he called every step a drag) the entire class stood around the training grounds.

"The first spar is between Dan Kato and Sakumo Hatake."

This stunned everyone as most usually have the same opponents like Tsunade and Kenta or Jiraiya and Orochimaru. This was the first time that Yoma had changed the person that they were fighting against.

The two then stood across from each other in the circle, with Sakumo holding a wooden sword as his silver hair stood up, while Dan simply had a wooden kunai in his hand while his blue hair flowed behind him.

Yoma then signalled for them to start as he yelled "Begin!"

Read chapters ahead on P@treon.com/KillerDJ2023