The next day, again Yuto was the last one to arrive. He came in merely a couple of minutes before 8 am. Looking at everyone, he chuckled, 'Look at these kids, coming early to sit on the first bench and fighting.'
He went and sat alone on the last bench and took a leaf from his pocket and kept his hands under the desk to check whether Takashi is a sensor or not.
Takashi arrived at 8 and started the class. The first hour was a lecture. He was talking about the history of the village, the pride that one should have in being a Konoha shinobi, and all such stuff. Yuto classified this lecture as a 'brainwashing session'.
Yuto observed the classroom. The 2 Naras were half asleep. The Akimichis were probably thinking about food. The 2 Inuzukas were too distracted with their dogs. One of the three Uchihas was very smug for some reason while the two Kurama girls were gossiping about something. Others were paying attention.
The Smug looking guy was Uchiha Teru. It seems like he wanted to walk in the footsteps of Itachi as he was bragging a lot about how the previous year's best student was an Uchiha who was only 7 years old on the previous day. Apparently, both the Uchihas could already perform the fireball jutsu. Yuto finally stopped looking around.
When Takashi was writing something on the board, Yuto grabbed the leaf with his left hand and started to train water nature while keeping his hand under the desk.
When he channeled his chakra, his whole attention was on Takashi. To see whether he would notice and react. However, there wasn't any visible change in Takashi's expression.
Yuto thought, 'Lucky. He ain't a natural sensor. Or he is ignoring me for some reason, though the chances of that are pretty low. Whatever, both scenarios are good for me.'
The lecture went on for an hour. Though Yuto paid some attention, the majority of his attention was on training his water nature.
After the brainwashing session was over, Takashi started explaining to everyone about Chakra. And then finally moved on to molding chakra with hand signs. Yuto stopped his lightning nature training and paid full attention in class.
The kids from the clans were, however, distracted. They had already been taught hand signs before they joined the academy.
In that class, Takashi taught everyone about 3 hand signs and made everyone practice them. He monitored everyone closely. After the lecture was over, he said that in the next 3 days, he'll be teaching them the remaining hand signs.
After that, they broke off for lunch followed by a lecture on History. Senju Akira and Hyuga Kito were answering a lot of questions asked by Takashi in this lecture. Yuto, on the other hand, stuck to his training while pretending to pay attention in class.
The week went by similarly. Takashi taught all 12 basic hand signs as well as the clone hand sign. He stressed the importance of learning hand signs properly, which Yuto noted was similar to the notes he read from a scroll yesterday, and asked everyone to practice them at home.
Other than this, Takashi also introduced everyone to the leaf concentration exercise.
In normal lectures, Yuto kept practicing his water nature training, but if he got bored with it, he used to try to use his lightning nature to wrinkle the leaf instead of damping it with water nature.
In week 2, Takashi held a class to throw shurikens. He first started with a competition between the students to understand where everyone stands. He also called a few other teachers to help him with this session.
Most of the clan kids performed well. The best was tied between Uchiha Yuki and Senju Teru. The other Uchiha, Aburame Takeshi, and Shimura Nobu rounded up the top 5.
Yuto was a bit startled by the serious attitude of Shimura Nobu. He thought, 'I guess Danzo got a root-like training program for the kids from his clan as well.'
Though Yuto had practiced earlier with shurikens, it was barely at an acceptable level. For starters, the difference in wrist movement and throwing technique itself reduced the impact on the log. Out of six shots, he only managed to hit two on the board. And even one was closer to the edge rather than the center.
He was ranked 22nd in the competition. Afterward, Takashi met up with every student, giving them advice.
When he reached Yuto, he said, "Alright, you have a lot of work to do on this. First, we'll start with your throwing form. Once we get that correct, you will improve quickly."
Yuto nodded and allowed Takashi to correct his posture. And then he tried to replicate how Takashi displayed throwing a shuriken. After Takashi corrected him a few more times. After being satisfied with his throwing form, Takashi moved on to the remaining students.
Yuto took this training seriously and practiced it a lot. After that day, his time at the academy was divided into his shuriken throwing practice, which he did on the academy practice grounds itself, right after the academy ended. And after reaching home, he practiced the hand signs, dampen the leaf, and meditated.
The new thing that he started was that Yuto started to practice walking on the water instead of tree walking technique. This was done as a substitute for water walking. Yuto filled a large tub with water, kept it near the wall stuck his hand with the chakra on the wall so he don't get wet, and started practicing water walking on it instead of searching any lake or pond and it can also draw the attention of others.
Walking on water took a few days to learn. By the end of week 2, he pulled that off without falling. He could walk on still water but had trouble in moving water. The major issue he faced here was the shortage of chakra. However, every day he practiced, he discovered that his stamina and chakra were improving.
But he wasn't sure how much an increase in chakra reserves was due to training. After trying to analyze it a bit, he dropped the matter. Assuring himself that it didn't matter as he was making progress anyways.
During all those falls, he also learned how to flip himself in the air to properly land on his feet.
After the first month in the academy, Takashi taught everyone the academy's basic Taijutsu style. It included a lot of forms and moves to make it a comprehensive Taijutsu style covering all areas. But that also meant that it wasn't mastered at anything.
However, for now, Yuto didn't concern himself with that. This Taijutsu style was way superior to everything he could do in Taijutsu. He was quite surprised and thought, 'I didn't think the basic style itself would be so complicated and cover all aspects. It makes me wonder how much better Senju and Uchiha Taijutsu styles are.
And Hyuga Taijutsu is superior to even them but even then they don't have kage-level shinobi. Well, let's first master the academy style. Then I can think about learning a more advanced form of Taijutsu. This will take a lot of time, but luckily I do have a lot of time.'
After that day, the Taijutsu forms got added to his morning workout as well. The Taijutsu training in the academy went on for over a month just to teach the students everything about that Taijutsu style. Yuto noted that the ones from Senju, Uchiha, Hyuga, and Inuzuka clans didn't learn the academic style of Taijutsu.
After the Taijutsu lessons were over, the academy students were made to fight among themselves every week. And depending upon their performance and technique, Takashi gave them tips or asked them to practice a certain form.
Even these Taijutsu matches were arranged as tournaments. Here Yuto did much better and was ranked 9th in the first tournament. Though his Taijutsu style wasn't very good yet, he did benefit from having a stronger body. He wasn't very surprised by it.
Though these students are very talented, maybe even more than him, no six-year-old kid would put as many hours into training as he did. The ones who do would be rare exceptions, like Guy for instance. Even Rock Lee only started to work that hard after he became a genin.
Hyuga Yuki ranked first in the first Taijutsu tournament. She was followed by Senju Akira, Hyuga Kito, Uchiha Teru, and the 3rd Hyuga. Shimura Nobu was 6th followed by one of the remaining two Senju at 7th and 8th place.
Yuto thought, 'Well, this is promising. Unlike them, I haven't had any proper training yet. As I train further, I should grow stronger and a lot faster than these guys. I suppose I am moving in the right direction, I should just stick to it.'
Takashi started to conduct Taijutsu tournaments and Shuriken throwing tournaments every week for his class.
Yuto noted that no such tournaments were arranged for the other 7 divisions. In fact, in one of his encounters with Hiroshi, he learned that they hadn't even had a Taijutsu class yet and are still being taught shuriken throwing and making hand signs properly.
He thought, 'I guess they are serious about developing this class properly. From what I heard, this was done last year as well. Though they were incredibly lucky to have Itachi in last year's class. If they have similar expectations from this year, then they will be very disappointed. Then again, I suppose they won't expect a talent of Itachi's caliber so regularly.'
He also added Semei kikan training on Saturday and Sunday as the academy runs till Friday only.
Ending the train of thought, Yuto looked forward to the future, a bit excited to keep improving himself.