Stealing Kushina Uzumaki away from fate would never be easy.
An ordinary nobody would never be worthy of the Nine-Tails jinchuriki's regard. Even if he won Kushina's favor, that still wouldn't be enough. He would have to prove his talent, prove his value, and make the people watching from the shadows see that he was worth their notice.
Otherwise, all kinds of "accidents" would start happening to Gojo Yoru. Best case, he would be separated from Uzumaki Kushina. Worst case, he would disappear so completely that not even a trace would remain.
After all, the Nine-Tails was the strongest tailed beast and Konoha's greatest strategic weapon. If the village wanted to bind Kushina Uzumaki to Konoha with the chains of emotional attachment, then those chains had to be made of the proper material.
In the original story, Minato Namikaze had possessed exactly that kind of value.
But Minato had only truly won Kushina's favor after graduation, during the incident with the Cloud ninja. If Gojo Yoru wanted to take that place while they were still at the Academy, then he needed to display enough brilliance during these years to leave a deep impression.
That meant one thing: before Kushina Uzumaki ever arrived as a "transfer student," Gojo Yoru needed to possess real strength—and at least one quality dazzling enough to make certain people pay attention.
So the question became simple.
In what year did Kushina Uzumaki enter Konoha?
Gojo Yoru didn't know.
Still, based on what the anime had revealed and what he had observed last semester, he could make a rough deduction.
First of all, Kushina definitely had not transferred in during first or second year. A six- or seven-year-old child was too small, too round-faced, too obviously unlike the Kushina Uzumaki of memory.
More importantly, if Gojo remembered correctly, in the original story, one of the boys Kushina beat up so badly had run crying to an older brother who was already a ninja, asking him to get revenge for him. That older brother had also ended up getting flattened by Kushina.
If the boy and Kushina had been in the same grade, then the odds of her transferring in during third year were very low.
So unless something unexpected had happened, she should have arrived sometime after third year. Fourth, fifth, or sixth—he couldn't be certain.
That meant Yoru Gojo still had at least three more years to grow.
The pen spinning between his fingers slowed for a moment.
A flash of inspiration seemed to skim across his mind. Gojo Yoru closed his eyes and let himself sink into thought, following the thread of that sudden idea in silence.
He did not open them again until the school bell rang and the teacher stepped into the classroom. Only then did he lower his gaze to his books and begin studying with full focus.
In his previous life, an average adult man had possessed around thirty-six trillion cells.
Children in this world—children who could possess chakra—had one hundred and thirty trillion.
That was why the children here were so absurdly precocious. At five or six, they already understood affection and romance. At seven or eight, they might be sent to war. Even in peacetime, by the age of twelve, blood was something they were expected to face without flinching.
Accordingly, the knowledge they studied at this age was outrageous.
Language and history. Medicine and chemistry. Cipher work and code-breaking. And much more besides.
Those subjects had shattered Gojo Yoru's arrogance during his first semester. They were also one of the reasons the pressure on him had grown so crushingly heavy.
If not for his transmigration, if not for the advantages of the family he had been born into, then in a world like this, a person who only began learning ninja fundamentals at the age of six would have possessed almost no edge at all.
Because of that, Gojo Yoru did not dare relax for even a moment before gaining the power to truly protect himself.
Whether in academic lessons or practical training, he had no intention of losing to anyone.
He wanted to keep winning.
He wanted to be first—always.
***
March 20, Konoha Year 31. Afternoon.
Thud.
A dull, heavy impact—like a fist slamming into a sandbag—rang out across the practice grounds in the area reserved for Class 1, Year 1.
The ring of watching students broke apart all at once.
A figure shot out from the center, hit the ground hard, and stayed down.
Seeing that, Yuya, the Chunin instructor standing beside a man in a white coat, immediately raised his voice and declared, "The match is over. The winner is Gojo Yoru."
The medical ninja beside him, who was serving both as an exam proctor and as safety support for the students, hurried over at once. After a quick examination, he began treating the fallen boy with medical ninjutsu.
Meanwhile, many of the nearby students still looked utterly stunned.
"W-What just happened?"
"Didn't Instructor Yuya just say start? Why did Yusuke suddenly go flying?"
"It was the Body Flicker! Gojo's Body Flicker is way too fast!"
"Yoru-kun got even stronger. In first year, only Minato-kun can probably still fight him now."
"How did that guy grow so much? Last year he was only half a head taller than us. Now he's a whole head taller. Anyone who didn't know better would think he's in fifth or sixth year. How are we supposed to beat that? That's not fair at all!"
"He's tall, fast, and strong. No wonder the upperclassmen don't dare mess with him anymore."
"If I get matched against one of the five of them later, I might as well just surrender. If I can't even see the attack, what's the point?"
"..."
The whispers stayed low, but boys and girls alike kept sneaking fearful glances at Gojo Yoru.
Hands in his pockets, expressionless, and a full head taller than the rest of the first-years, he looked less like a student and more like an unbeatable little demon king wreathed in invisible darkness.
Yusuke, having recovered under the medical ninja's treatment, still trembled faintly from fright. He formed the Seal of Reconciliation with Gojo Yoru without saying a word, then turned and fled the school grounds without looking back.
Yuya did not stop him.
If Gojo Yoru had been the one to defeat Yusuke and leave without a backward glance, Yuya would have been deeply troubled. He might even have considered reporting the matter and asking the Hokage to arrange psychological counseling for the boy.
But after kicking Yusuke away, Gojo Yoru had not left at all. He had remained where he was, waiting quietly for the result, and only moved after the reconciliation seal had been completed.
To children his own age, Gojo Yoru was a cold-blooded demon king.
To adults like Yuya, he was simply an awkward child with a difficult personality and no idea how to express himself properly.
Perhaps, Yuya thought, the boy was feeling guilty right now for not controlling his strength well enough.
Today was the third-semester final exam for first through fifth year. In a few days, it would be time for the sixth-years' graduation exam.
The graduation test changed every year, and anyone who passed it officially graduated.
As for first through fifth year, the third-semester final was also known as the annual exam.
After the exam, the results would be posted on the bulletin board at the start of the new school year. At the same time, based on each student's combined performance across all three semesters, five students from the entire grade—selected from all classes—would be named as models for the other students to emulate.
That title was simple.
Top student.
And although the physical combat section of the exam had not ended yet, everyone in Class One already knew who that title would belong to.
There were no Uchiha or Hyuga among this year's incoming students.
Those two great clans controlled important departments in the village and enjoyed the privilege of raising their own heirs privately. The ones they sent to the Academy were usually either ordinary members whose talent the clan itself did not value highly, or the descendants of major figures—children sent as a kind of hostage so the Hokage and Konoha's upper ranks could rest easy.
Only when those descendants were educated beneath the Will of Fire would the village leadership truly feel reassured.
Of course, from time to time, those two proud clans would still send a genuine genius to the Academy. The point, more often than not, was to display overwhelming talent, remind the village of the gap between bloodline elites and ordinary shinobi, then graduate early and leave that impression behind.
Unfortunately, this year's class had produced no such clan prodigy.
And yet, in Yuya's eyes, whether it was Gojo Yoru or Namikaze Minato, aside from lacking a powerful bloodline limit, their talent was no worse than that of the gifted children born to great clans and famous ninja families.