Training daily with Lee and Guy almost made Jay forget that he was supposed to start at the academy in just a few weeks …
It was a brutally efficient methodology that practically required Yūgao’s presence as an on-demand med-nin …
***
Guy was a monster in the best possible way … and even though Jay was sure the man wasn't sharing everything, what Jay was being taught was more than enough … Jay’s previous knowledge about ‘fighting’ had a resemblance to Guy's Strong-Fist one, this only made Jay’s progress faster … half-remembered movements were polished, reflexes once confined to the mind were slowly carved into the body … Guy was teaching a bare bones version of the Strong Fist style, as Jay wasn’t his apprentice, but that bare bones version made for a study skeleton for Jay to build upon …
***
Jay wasn't sure if he should ask why Guy-san didn't learn medical ninjutsu for himself … but Jay was sure that this kind of knowledge comes with demands that Guy wasn't willing to follow …
It was something Jay learned as soon as he went into the ‘public library’ … a lot of information was heavily restricted, not only techniques but the knowledge itself …
Jay could see how Guy's ‘Strong-Fist’ spat in the face of a lot of other ‘schools’ … the whole style took something from everyone … No respect for ‘culture’ or even ‘Style’ if it worked, you used it …
*** *** ***
While Jay progresses quickly thanks to his own previous experiences and his fast healing due to Kurama …
Lee on the other hand … Jay could see the boy changing daily …
Jay could tell that Lee was just entering puberty and Guy was using and abusing this natural ‘development point’ of the human body with refined precision …
Yūgao-san made sure the boy was in tip-top shape, Jay was sure she was doing daily bloodwork on Lee … whatever Guy did with Lee after training wasn't normal … and it was working …
Jay's only assumption was that Guy had a way to manipulate the body's hormonal production. Jay could only shake his head in envy at what he couldn't do yet … Lee’s accelerated physical development took the boy to a whole new level of ‘YOUTH’.
Though for Jay, the lack of easily accessible knowledge was frustrating, he already knew what he could offer Maito Guy in exchange for his complete methods … Too bad that knowledge about ‘medicine’ wasn't easily available for Jay to simply ‘develop’ things on his own … He needed to find a plausible excuse before developing medical ninjutsu on his own …
But that was a project for the future …
*** *** ***
The training didn't affect only Jay … Poor Kurama was all over the place to the point that Jay had to intervene and make the Fox take a break.
Kurama could grunt all he wanted, but Jay could see the weariness on Kurama's body …
Kurama was getting better at dealing with the host of physical sensations, but the sheer overload of Guy's training was a bit too much for him this soon …
The pain meds made Kurama feel ‘doped’, the herbs made him ‘euphoric’ and the constant overtraining made the Fox raw with pain …
Jay saw the fox becoming increasingly twitchy and insistent over ‘experiences’ …
[Jay] - I won't stop you, but I'm telling you to get a handle over yourself, if you don't take a break, you will end up as another boring mindless pleasure seeker -
Poking at the Fox’s ego seemed to have the desired effect because Kurama decided to sleep for the next few days to let everything adjust.
Jay suspected that whoever or whatever made the Fox had no idea what a living being needed to ‘live’ … from what little Jay could figure out about Kurama as a creature, Jay could assume Kurama's whole existence before was ‘numb’ in a way that couldn't be natural …
Another piece to the puzzle that he still refused to talk about … but that was fine, Jay liked a difficult puzzle.
*** *** ***
The week's training Jay had been a trove of information for Guy that genuinely made the Green Beast reframe the whole exchange …
Each nugget of information that the young genius said out loud as he himself tried to figure things out helped Guy immensely.
The first day they met in the hokage tower, Maito Guy acquired the crucial clue to medical ninjutsu that evaded him for so long … he needed to go smaller, ever smaller …
The Ninjutsu technique focus was on the body like as has been alluded to, but the scope, the scope was entirely different …
Guy could feel it … medical Ninjutsu relied on having to focus on something so incredibly small with the correct mental focus … It wasn’t something one could just ‘discover’ unless taught or …
[Maito Guy] - Unless you were a genius of logic … -
Guy shook his head at how easy it was for Jay to breakdown techniques into simple to understand steps … He was just like Minato …
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
[Maito Guy] “ … Like father like son … “
***
Precise chakra control was a must for any decent ninja, and a Taijutsu user wasn’t excluded from that rule … the coordination and control necessary for the heavy self-reinforcement made chakra control as much of a necessity for taijutsu as any of the other arts …
A deep self-perception was another essential piece in the youthful road of self-improvement, you need to be keenly aware of your own body and its limits, it was a carefully controlled balance between power and reinforcement, always teetering on the edge of what your body can take … the less chakra you needed to spend reinforcing your body, the more you could devote to generate force … knowing your limits made sure you could fight at peak efficiency …
The last part was actually knowing the body … what to eat, how to train, how long to rest … every great martial artist either has a personal ‘physician’ or was one himself …
Guy was the latter … the scrolls his father left for him were a treasure of information, but they were also from the perspective of a man that never had formal study … Guy improved ever since, but the last barrier to medical ninjutsu eluded him …
Until Jay gave Guy the hint he needed …
It was a slow process … Guy had to spend hours in heavy meditation with an open wound just to feel for the right ‘resonance’ … but he was getting close …
Day after day, Guy had a little bit more control. In a few months at this pace, Guy was sure he would be able to perform a simple medical ninjutsu and after that … practice makes perfect …
Maito Guy smiled … he was an honorable man, Guy would repay Jay as soon as the boy was ready … puberty would come for him soon and Guy would teach him how to unlock the first body limiter …
A fair trade for the keys to medical ninjutsu.
*** *** ***
The new academy year was just starting and Jay was ready and also preparing to be bored.
Lee was as enthusiastic as ever, making sure he would be the best school senpai ever and that if Jay ever had a problem he could look for him …
Jay appreciated it but his mind was mulling over the benefits and drawbacks of manipulating the kids of his class …
On one hand, they were easy targets and sometimes grew up into valuable allies, especially if they were kids of important people.
On the other hand, they were easy targets and thus, boring … they also generally developed some annoying dependent relationships that were more than likely to escalate into ‘young love’ as soon as puberty hit …
And when that happened, the previous cultivated friendships now became targets of jealousy and a competition for his attention and affection …
Worst of all, there was no winning it, refusing the advances were as likely to break friendships as accepting them … the wonders of emotional and illogical teenagers …
It was one of the problems that being seen as exceptional brought … and honestly, Jay just didn't feel like dealing with this ‘Run’, especially because deciding to ignore the social conventions to go full ‘debauchery’ would probably make Kurama develop a complex …
And Jay was just not dealing with a nymphomaniac Fox in his head … though that could be really, really funny … He should visit a whorehouse sometime in the future, see how the Fox reacted …
He would just act as he was doing up till now, whatever happened it was their problem, they had other adults to take care of them, that meant it was not Jay's problem …
Jay huffed a laugh and shook off the annoying thoughts out of his head, taking a step forward and opening the door to his classroom.
*** *** ***
Iruka got a report about each of the kids he was supposed to teach …
His class was made for the more ‘well connected’ and ‘important’ names in the village.
The only problem with that was that his class was filled with the cream of the crop.
Heirs of clans or powerful families … way too many in a single class if Iruka was allowed to complain …
Kids that showed good promise … but not too much, so the clan kids didn't look bad …
And the ‘prodigies’ … those were supposed to be fast tracked into the advanced classes, here only for enough time to show off how far everyone else was from the true talent of Konoha …
Iruka only stumbled when his eyes landed on the paperwork referring to ‘Jay Uzumaki’ formerly Naruto Uzumaki …
How ? Why ? When ? … What happened to make his name change ? …
… Being tutored by Maito Guy for over a week ? … Increased emotional awareness and incredible deductive reasoning ? … Able to extract personal information secrets out of his Chunin caretaker …
… Iruka knew about the young prodigy.
Iruka was even one of his early instructors … that's why Iruka was sure the boy didn't belong to this class … there was nothing for him to learn here … especially if the reports were accurate …
But the orders were clear, see how young Jay performed and how he interacted before advancing him, preferably, Iruka was supposed to keep Jay for as long as possible with his peers …
Iruka wasn't sure what Hokage-sama was smoking on that pipe of his to even suggest that the boy who had more in common with a meat puppet would even have peers in a class of mostly ‘normal children’ … Just the emotional awareness and deductive reasoning alone will make the other children easy prey if Jay feels like it …
Iruka would give ‘Jay Uzumaki' a month tops to have the class eating out of his hand before he tried to move ahead …
Iruka was already nursing a headache and the class hadn't even begun …
*** *** ***
The room was already somewhat full when Jay arrived.
Despite being the first day, Jay wasn't really looking to make a reputation as a teacher's pet … he would try the ‘bad boy’ approach this time around … more freedom meant more opportunities for his own projects … and starting to be a little bit rebellious at this point would help dispel his previous ‘meat puppet' reputation.
Jay made this choice mostly because he wasn't lacking in connections … Being the carrier of an immortal, gigantic fox, had its perks after all … but most importantly, Guy also showed Jay that, as long as you were powerful enough, you didn't have to play those games … The Konoha institution would cater to your demands as long as you brought more value than what you cost.
[Jay] “ Alright, let's get to the back of the class “
*** *** ***
Iruka arrived at the moment the signal rang, closing the door behind him … punctuality was something the kids needed to learn as soon as possible …
Taking a look at the class, Iruka could see that most of the seats were already filled.
The small gatherings were also predictable.
The allied clans and the surrounding smaller families were sitting closer, the ‘friendships’ that blossomed here would secure the future stability of the involved …
Outside of those circles, there was the rest of the common born, Iruka could see them looking around trying to fit in, seeing where they could go.
There were also the ‘loners’, those that were not bothered with the social aspect of the class and instead, were there for the ninja education and practice only …
***
[Iruka] - ALRIGHT CLASS … -
Iruka’s loud voice boomed into the classroom, making most students pay attention.
[Iruka] - … Welcome to your first day in Konoha's ninja academy … As the name implies, you are here to learn how to be a splendid ninja … -
***
Jay mostly tuned out the rest of the discourse, it was half part inspirational talk, half part propaganda … and Jay didn't care for either … Instead, Jay decided to ‘people watch’, see if there was any interesting ‘mark’ on the class …
***
[Iruka] - … Now that you know what your School days will be like, let's move to the academy training grounds … -
Iruka saw the students filling out of the door when a voice cut through the noise.
[Jay] - Iruka-sensei, the training ground is there right ? -
Iruka saw Jay-kun pointing to the outside of the window he was close by.
[Iruka] - That's correct Jay-kun … -
Iruka had a feeling for where this was going …
[Jay] - Sweet, see you guys outside … -
And lo and behold, the boy jumped out of the window … three stories high …
A bunch of kits screamed, pointed and ran back to the class … only to see the boy hit the ground rolling.
Jay got up, dusted off his clothes, and looked up at the full class of impressionable children …
[Jay] - You guys were taking too long, this was faster … -
Jay said with a shrug.
***
Iruka could only close his eyes and take a deep breath as Jay's stunt derailed the orderly exit …
The next five minutes of Iruka's life were wasted on the impossible task of herding children and assuring them that no, they can't jump off like Jay, they would die … yes, they would learn how to do it … no, they weren't going to learn it now …
And on and on until they finally made out into the training grounds where Iruka saw Jay punching a tree with enough force to rip the bark and make the tree shake a little …
[Iruka] “ This is going to be a headache isn't it ? “
Iruka sighed as a lot of the children converged on Jay to ask him how he was doing it … once more, derailing the schedule.
*** *** ***
