CHAPTER 26

He still wasn't sent to the academy, as most do - at the age of five. His father was once stirred up by the desire to be proud of his son becoming ninja, from which he wanted to suggest admission when Yuske reached the age of five, but the youth gave arguments against it.

He didn't have to resort to anything difficult, it was enough to inform his mother about taijutsu sparrings where kids smashed each other's faces in. That was enough for Yoshida Hana to flatly refuse to even listen about the possibility of her son enrolling at a tender age into such an irresponsible institution.

At that moment Yuske had to give arguments in favor of why he should still enroll there in the future, namely two years later when he turns seven. He knew that before he turned eight, he couldn't be sent to the academy anyway. After the events with Kyubi, the school would still have a whole year to rebuild. But, if he had voiced his desire to enroll at the age of eight, and then it just so happened that the school would be rebuilt by that date - slightly observant individuals might get suspicious.

As a result, he told his parents about the desire to enroll exactly at the age of seven, and the fact that at this time there would be no educational facility as such, he did not care, let someone else deal with it, the main thing was to avoid suspicion.

Yuske assigned Nine-Tails the responsibility with elimination of the academy, after all, it would give him another year of free time that he could spend on gaining proper strength, something that would be impossible to achieve if he had to spend a lot of time and energy attending useless classes.

It goes without saying that Yuske didn't want to go to the academy this early, and it wasn't just because Itachi was snooping around, who was the cause of much misfortune. Besides, he won't be there for long, as he'll graduate rather quickly.

The youth had two more valid reasons to stay out of there. Not the least of which was the fact that for Yuske this institution embodied wasted time, because there was nothing else the children were doing there.

But another important reason lay in his strategy of keeping to the shadows and not showing anything eye-catching, and for that, the less he was seen in public the better.

Demonstration to his parents of his self-learned writing and reading skills helped fulfill this desire, convincing them that Yuske was capable enough to figure things out on his own and that the academy was not so critical for him.

They were quite surprised at his desire to get books and writing tools, and certainly did not expect that it was not just a childish urge to scribble on the sheets, but quite a conscious intention, which led to the fact that a year later he was already writing and reading at a fairly good level without any attendance of the academy.

What Yuske didn't realize was that his mother was relieved to hear that he wanted to stay away from the Academy for the time being, because she wasn't comfortable with the idea of her son becoming a shinobi at all. Accordingly, his wish not to enroll at five was the light at the end of the tunnel for her, which gave her some hope that maybe he would change his mind about becoming a ninja at all over the years.

Nothing extra brilliant on his part was done to learn the language: first notifying his parents about the need to get simple writing utensils, and then the unfolding interest in books with a specific emphasis, namely the grammatical foundations of the language. That being said, Yusuke was already quite proficient in writing and reading, but he couldn't openly demonstrate his skills right away. He had to pretend, and only after a certain amount of time could he carry out his demonstration of reading and writing skills at an acceptable level and that he was doing quite well on his own in acquiring the necessary knowledge without the need to seek help from an educational institution.

Shinobi of this epoch graduated on average at the age of twelve, and though it wasn't as peaceful as he wanted it to be right now, he assumed that the majority still stuck to the mentioned age. Only a few freaks, like a couple of particularly gifted Uchiha, still honor the tradition of geniuses - to stand out from the crowd, and still snot-nosed go out into the battlefields to try to get killed.

During their first few years at the Academy, children are taught the basics of language, and many other things that will allow future shinobi to develop their own understanding of the world around them. Yuske was aware of all this, and for reluctance to waste his precious time in such an impractical manner, he was about to enroll just as a course related to the shinobi profession was about to begin.

Other things - general knowledge, such as history, geography, political basics and this kind of nonsense did not interest him at all. And he also knew, back from his old world, that the educational system was just a cover to keep the common people subdued, creating the illusion of equality between the people of ordinary origin and those who really determined the fate of the world.

In reality, schools and universities only provide the masses with unnecessary ballast of knowledge, and about 90% of everything students are taught will never be needed, hence the wasted time.

Fortunately, mature behavior and responsible attitude on the part of a child wouldn't surprise anyone in this village, from which Yuske could stop acting like a kid by now. But it is also possible that his help with child-care influenced as the main point of argument, from which the parents reckoned with their son's opinion. And yes, a baby sister was born. Yoshida Ayane, that's the name of the screaming and pooping creature that was born just over six months ago, and now the youth knows the answer to the question, "How do you feel about children? ".