Chapter 4 - Three years of training

As a few years, more precisely three, went by, I was now five years old. Nothing exiting happened during those years, but the tension between the villages was increasing. Minato and I was starting in the Academy in less than a year, though I'm not really sure if we fit in. I guess some of the clan children might have gotten to the same level of training as us. As far as I know, and based on the explanation from Hiruzen, most clan children start training at four years old. We had been training intensely these three years, giving us a head start of two years. Using the scrolls, we got from the hokage, we learn many things, but the most essential is that we learnt to use chakra and got to train our control with the leaf sticking exercise. Even to this day, I still have nightmares about the day before we got our first set of scrolls, it was pure hell…

Right after the hokage sent me back to the orphanage, I quickly got to work by sharing the news with Minato. Just like me, he seemed really excited, finally being able to learn the shinobi arts. As excites as we were, we still had to explain why we would like to begin training early, both of us together, spent about twenty minutes planning how to explain to Midori-san… but no amount of planning could have prepared us for what came next…

First of there are a few key points to the situation, that we only found out after it was to late. One of those being that Midori-san was a former jonin, though I had already anticipated that, the final nail in the coffin had to be her former position and profession… Head of torture and intelligence. I seriously had to question Tobirama's intelligence… Who in their right mind let someone with her record and profession, run a fuċkɨnġ orphanage? Though credit where credit is due, she really did a damn good job, so I guess it wasn't that bad of a decision.

What comes next you could probably imagine. Us viewing her as our surrogate mother, and her viewing us as her surrogate sons, we got an absolute, no chance at all, beating. It was so bad Hiruzen had to call in some medical shinobi from the hospital to fix our wounded bodies, and furthermore a Yamanaka to make sure we didn't suffer from mental trauma.

Making the story as short as possible, our conversation went a little like this…

"Midori-san, Minato and I have something to inform you about" – Me

"Oh, and what might that be? You didn't get in trouble, did you?" – Midori

"No, of course not Midori-san, we came to inform you that we are starting our shinobi training early, and will be visiting the hokage tomorrow, to pick up our first equipment and scrolls" – Me

"Hmm, how about you DON'T do that, and we can go get some ramen together tomorrow, while we forget about this matter" – Midori

Midori-san at this point, didn't seem that angry, she smiled at us, which sent chills down our spines. Somehow though Minato though it was a good idea to press on. I can safely say… it wasn't, and ohh boy was she angry after that. That is also what led to us being confined to bed for the rest of the day, also spending the night with empty stomachs.

As I thought back on it, it really was the worst day of our life, possibly only second to losing our parents. Anyway, over these 3 years I managed to learn up to intermediate level with the bo-staff. Much to my surprise though, both Minato and I, got started in fuinjutsu, during some of the few actual training sessions we had with Hiruzen. Before this, I had always thought Hiruzen learnt fuinjutsu from Minato, but I guess it makes sense, considering Jiraiya, was already far on this path when he received Minato as his apprentice, also being the original one to spark his interest in seals. My most qualified guess is that Hiruzen doesn't know too much about it, and later having been taught the Reaper Death seal, by Minato.

Well back on topic, as much as I hate to admit it, Minato was born to be a fuinjutsu expert. I however not as much. From what I've been told by Hiruzen, my talent is on par with the Uzumaki, while Minato's was enough to make him a prodigy, even within the Uzumaki clan. He didn't hold the top score of all time in the chunin exam for nothing it seems.

In terms of abilities overall, we were almost even. Minato held the advantage in fuinjutsu and shurikenjutsu, while I prevailed in hand to hand combat and chakra control. Due to Minato not wanting to take up the bo-staff, he was given a scroll and some lessons on the basic academy taijutsu style, almost mastering it and adventuring into the intermediate version. As the academy taijutsu style was obligatory, I of course also learnt it, but I stayed at the basic level, choosing to focus on the bo-staff instead.

The only to ninjutsu we were taught was the E-ranked bunshin(clone technique) and the henge(transformation jutsu). Once again kawarimi was left for the academy. When we were first introduced to the techniques, I was a little sad, as I had hoped we would get to learn the tajuu kage bunshin(multiple shadow clone justu), or at least the normal kage bunshin(shadow clone jutsu). Thinking about it, it was probably too much to expect, since the former was considered a forbidden technique and the later required jonin level chakra reserves. Too bad, learning with kage bunshin would have been quite nifty, but I guess it at least must wait for later.

In January of the next year, Minato and I turned six. (AN: In the data books it says Minato's birthday was the twenty fifth of January, so I'm going with that) That meant we got had to start in the academy, which we were both very exited about. We still had to wait a few months for the next school season, so as of now we still did private training. As we had gotten more familiar with our combat styles, I managed to reach close to the peak of intermediate bo-staff technique, which I though made me close to chunin level, until I realized I was still in the genin section. I guess being close to mid-genin level in technique was pretty good, I was still nowhere near their level, as I didn't have the strength or speed they had, making it a loss ten out of ten times if I were to try and fight one.

While we were training, I had time to think about who I should make friends with in the academy. I seem to remember Nawaki being somewhat similar in age to Minato, and the same being the case for many of those who was clan leaders during Naruto's youth. Other than that, the only civilian I had to worry about would be Might Duy, and possibly Sakumo Hatake, since I'm not really sure if the Hatakes was a clan. (AN: Might Duy is Guy's father, and Sakumo is Kakashi's father, just in case you didn't know) I'm not too sure about their age, but they should have gained their fame in the second or third war. To sum it up, there were lots of people Minato and I would profit from by becoming friends with, but first and foremost, I was really hyper, since I get to go to school with so many legendary characters.

I really can't wait to start.

(Edit; i will start using english jutsu names, since it was requested)