Over the next few days, Jay became somewhat of a hot topic in his class.

  While the class itself housed the better talents and some important heirs … It didn't take long for Jay to shoot towards the top place of the class … After all, it was a class for children.

  Sure, most of those children obviously received training at home, especially those heirs … There were scant few that were actually pushed any hard … it was peace time after all, they had time to let the children develop, it made sense to go slowly, better chances of success that way …

  But Jay wasn't really looking forward to taking it ‘slow’. While the heirs in his class would make for some profitable friendships in the future … Jay felt he was better off pursuing a quicker path to power.

  So Jay didn't bother taking it ‘easy’ …

  Textbook answers to questions.

  Top marks in physical conditioning (Maito Guy was a slave driver and Jay had a Fox in his gut that helped him heal).

  Chakra control, top marks.

  Genjutsu, dispelling was as easy as breathing, Jay had chakra to purge his own system again and again no problem …

  Ninjutsu … that one took some working out …

  While the hand-coordination to make the seals in a fast manner wasn't really a problem … the execution of said ninjutsu was.

  ***

  The clone ninjutsu was the basis for the other two academy jutsu …

  Transformation was ‘wearing’ a shell of said clone like a body-suit, one made of chakra that you could change however you liked.

  Going to sizes different than your own was dramatically harder than simply changing appearance. So much so that it was considered almost impossible with the simple version of the jutsu taught at the academy.

  Jay supposed the Akimichi used a modified version of the transformation jutsu, one tailored to their sizeshifting style of fighting … more Clan secrets apparently …

  ***

  Substitution on the other hand was simpler in theory … you executed a dash-Kata while leaving the clone in your place.

  That's it, you dodge out of the way, leaving a clone behind …

  Do it well enough and you can fool your opponent for a brief moment as you escape, preferably into a blind spot of his for a counter attack …

  It required good timing with your dodge and a quick execution of the clone jutsu.

  Jay already trained the Dash Kata with Lee and Guy … The taijutsu portion of the ‘substitution’ was not the problem, Jay was already quite fast with it.

  But executing the clone jutsu ? … That took Jay a little too long.

  ***

  For Jay, the clone jutsu was simple and yet surprisingly complex.

  As far as Jay could gather, the jutsu worked by taking a ‘chakra snapshot’ of your whole body and then ‘printing’ that copy.

  The chakra that soaks your every cell … that energy of ‘physicality and spirituality’ that's carrying an imprint of your very being … The jutsu takes a snapshot of all of that, and pushes out a low resolution, skin-deep copy out … Like a balloon shaped ‘you’.

  Jay clones took longer to be ‘printed out’ … he suspects it is because he understands a lot of the underlining process and ‘what’ the jutsu 'should’ be copying … in other words, Jay was trying to use the ‘crappy’ printer of the basic clone jutsu, to print out a high resolution ‘clone’ … and the jutsu just can't handle it …

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  Jay's clones are good, perfect even … but they take way too long to form …

  And while Jay ‘could’ make things as simple as they should be, to simply make the ‘Balloon’ as the jutsu was supposed to do … Jay wanted to see how far he could push the ‘copy’ thing the jutsu was doing …

  That's why Jay spent the next few months trying to improve on that basic jutsu, consulting with Yūgao and Guy.

  Jay had the distinct suspicion they already knew an answer but were trying to see what his answer would be …

  Turns out, Jay was reinventing the wheel … or in this case ‘Shadow Clones’ … Dumb name if you asked him.

  Because the jutsu wasn’t made of Shadow’s, it was raw chakra given form and ‘character’ …

  But if that was the case, how about the other elements ? … Elements were another rabbit hole for Jay to dive into, because in general, no matter the magic system, ‘Elements’ were always an abstraction for something else going on in the background but that’s something for later, as of now, Jay was laser focused on the ‘Clone’ jutsu and it’s variants.

  ***

  Hiruzen received another report from the Academy and Yūgao … Young Jay was performing admirably, though his interactions with his pears left something to be desired …

  Young Jay didn’t bother to socialize, nor did he bother with the ‘order’ of things …

  His class was boring ? He would leave to the training grounds and train there until the class finished or he would walk over to the next class and see what they were doing … He would go to the next year's classroom, take an empty seat and see if their class was more interesting than his own.

  Iruka would try to punish him, but Young Jay, unsurprisingly, read the academy ‘rule-book’ and correctly told Iruka that technically speaking, he wasn’t doing anything wrong, the disruption he was causing was in actuality the other student’s lack of discipline, for Jay wasn’t making any ruckus with his escapades …

  And with Jay’s top marks, Iruka didn’t have much else to complain about, Iruka tried to dissuade Jay from this behavior by implementing ‘In-class demonstration’ marks … But Iruka didn’t account for Jay not caring about his top spot …

  Hiruzen released a sigh and got back to reading the other reports about young Jay’s developments … His old and tired eyes roaming over the written report with ever increasing excitement.

  [Hiruzen] - Ho ho ho … Young Jay’s is truly brilliant isn’t he ? … Deriving a ‘Shadow Clone’ adjacent jutsu out of the basic clone jutsu and his pointed questions about the transformation jutsu and the Akimichi … what a curious mind … -

  Hiruzen taped the ashes out of his pipe and proceeded to fill new tobacco in.

  Young Jay had a striking resemblance with Orochimaru … but where Hiruzen’s previous student was a broken child that he hoped against all hope would ‘heal’ in time … Young Jay was simply curious.

  Hiruzen once more debated speeding up young Jay’s stay in the academy … Jay wasn’t interacting with his peers as Hiruzen hoped he would, and even his teachers had little to actually teach him while also teaching the rest of the class …

  Would it be better to fast track Jay’s career like Kakashi-kun or young Itachi ? …

  With a flick of his fingers and a small application of Katon chakra, Hiruzen lighted up his pipe before smoking it, feeling the exquisite taste of his high end tobacco …

  [Hiruzen] - Young Itachi may be able to connect with Jay … And that might also smooth over some of the ruffed feathers in the uchiha clan … -

  Hiruzen took a look at another report, this one from young Itachi himself.

  *** *** ***

  Hiruzen’s grip on power was waning with his age … Currently, there are no good candidates to represent the institution of Konoha … none had the right mix of fame, power and support …

  Hiruzen’s students were failures …

  Orochimaru became a rogue element with his own ninja institution competing with Konoha … Otogakure was a meat grinder, but the results spoke for themselves, if you survived, you became ‘strong’ … It was the land of the desperate and it was cutting on Konoha’s business, especially since Orochimaru had a wealth of Konoha’s techniques trusted upon him by Hiruzen himself … Techniques that were now becoming ‘commonplace’ as Orochimaru sold them to finance his ‘village’ of experiments …

  Tsunade was a rogue medic selling her services to the highest bidder and then blowing said payments on Alcohol and Gambling.

  Jiraya was a rogue in all but name, manning an ‘information trading hub’ over the countless brothels he ‘not so secretly’ owned … That, and his smut literature that gained a surprising accolade … Jiraya was a pimp with his name proudly displayed at the back of his books.

  Of the current Konoha’s roster, only Kakashi Hatake and Maito Guy had the required power.

  Kakashi barely made the cut in power, his stagnation after the death of the Fourth Hokage was a dead giveaway of his mental frailty … And despite being an ANBU captain since he was a teen, Kakashi wasn’t well known outside of Konoha and he didn’t make many friends on the inside … not many would support his rise to power.

  Their best option was Maito Guy. Being Konoha’s deterrent, he was more than powerful enough for the position … His enthusiastic weirdness and honesty, despite grating some people's nerves, made him well regarded and well liked, in small doses … But his fame … People had FEAR of Maito Guy. Konoha’s Green Beast was an omen of broken bodies and destruction … There was no ‘finesse’ to be had and no ‘good will’ left behind …

  Another of Hiruzen’s failures, the Green Beast was deployed only when he was required, all that people saw outside of Konoha was Maito Guy’s roaring form tearing through people like tissue paper … Having him as the face of Konoha would turn away clients, and if there was one thing a Hokage had to do, was to attract business … Something Maito Guy wouldn’t be able to do …

  But Itachi ? … Itachi was a rising star, the Uchiha and Hiruzen were pushing him towards the right places, Daimios, Nobles and Merchants knew his face, his ‘ANBU’ placement was more visible than most would think, giving him the right amount of danger behind his professional politeness …

  Itachi Uchiha was the pride of the Uchiha and their hope for the future.

  The young genius rose through the ranks faster than most thought possible … His promise was big enough that as a Teen, he was chosen to be trained as an ANBU and in little time, he already completed his training, being one of the youngest ninjas to ever serve the ANBU …

  Itachi’s choice for ANBU was made for his talent, yes, but it was also a political choice …

  The Uchiha clan was getting restless, their older generations were getting tired of waiting for the Uchiha to take the helm of the village they helped build …

  There were talks about striking out on their own, with Daimios ready to take them in as young Itachi made an impression … But there were also talks about a political takeover …

  Hiruzen couldn’t give direct endorsement for young Itachi, but if he took young Jay out of the academy and made him Itachi’s apprentice …

  That was almost as good as saying Itachi was already chosen for the position … And giving the Uchiha an extra lever with ‘konoha’s jinchuriki’ was a sure way to make peace with the Uchiha and buy a few extra years for Itachi to be actually ready to take on the mantle …

  But Hiruzen would only do it if young Jay proved to be as intelligent as he suspected …

  ***

  Hiruzen turned towards the ANBU assistant there with him …

  [Hiruzen] - Get me Itachi Uchiha and Jay Uzumaki … -

  Hiruzen said without turning, preparing the reports that he would have young Jay read.

  *** *** ***

  Alright, let me start with a few things.

  Classic Naruto spent almost NO time in the academy, I have no idea what they do in there, so I’ll apply the good old Time Skip, just like classic did.

  Now, let’s go over another important point … The Uchiha massacre … That thing that happened …

  I’ll be honest with you all … Nothing makes any sense, I can’t think of any feasible way to make it happen … I’ll try to make a point of it here but if it gets too big for an Authors note, a new chapter will be about it …

  … Yeah, new chapter for sure.