Chapter Seven: The Situation in Konoha
Early the next morning, Ryūya got up before dawn, got dressed neatly, left the clan grounds, and walked through the bustling streets of Konoha to the agreed meeting place.
Today was the day Ryūya's genin squad was gathering again.
The notice had come three days earlier, when his teammate Sagawa from Team Thirty-One came to inform him.
This was the first time Team Thirty-One had assembled since Ryūya recovered from his injuries.
As for the purpose of this gathering, Ryūya already had a vague guess in his mind.
Over the past month, Konoha's situation had undergone tremendous changes.
One month earlier, following the successive conclusions of the Battle of Kannabi Bridge and the Battle of Kikyo Pass, the flames on the main fronts of the Third Great Ninja War had largely died down. Large numbers of Konoha ninja began returning from the front lines to the village.
These returning ninja also brought back more intelligence from the war, and news of Jiraiya's disciple, Namikaze Minato, and his astonishing performance on the battlefield quickly became known among the villagers.
For a time, Namikaze Minato's prestige within the village soared.
At the same time, some discordant voices criticizing the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, began to appear.
During the Third Great Ninja War, Konoha had lost a large number of ninja. Under the guidance of certain interested parties, the families and clans behind those fallen ninja began to direct their anger toward the village's Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen.
When Ryūya first heard this news, he immediately realized that the day Sarutobi Hiruzen would step down as Hokage was not far off.
After the Third stepped down, Namikaze Minato would soon rely on the tremendous prestige he had gained during the war to defeat Orochimaru in their competition, and assume the position of Konoha's Fourth Hokage.
And just as Ryūya had expected, events unfolded exactly that way.
Half a month later, Konoha successfully signed a peace treaty with Iwagakure, an event that marked the official end of the Third Great Ninja War.
In this war that had lasted for several years, Konoha, relying on the strength of a single village, had successively withstood attacks from Kumogakure, Sunagakure, Kirigakure, and Iwagakure. However, the prolonged conflict had also cost Konoha a great number of elite ninja, and someone had to step forward to bear responsibility for this outcome.
The Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, quickly became the focal point of blame.
Many ninja and clans unwilling to let the matter rest voiced their dissatisfaction with the upper leadership's decisions, and all kinds of rumors unfavorable to the Third spread wildly.
With no other choice, under immense pressure, the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, was forced to resign from his position.
Ryūya didn't need to guess to know that this entire chain of events had unfolded under Danzō's covert guidance and manipulation.
However, Danzō ultimately did not reap much benefit.
Danzō's original intention had been to elevate Orochimaru, but before stepping down, the Third Hokage not only refused to support his own disciple Orochimaru, but instead recommended Jiraiya's disciple, Namikaze Minato.
Although Orochimaru was one of the Legendary Sannin and possessed outstanding battle achievements, his cold and sinister conduct made him unpopular within the village. Many ninja feared him more than they respected him.
Namikaze Minato, on the other hand, as a civilian-born ninja, had earned tremendous prestige through his dazzling performance in the war. Many villagers regarded him as a hero who had saved the village.
In addition, Minato's teacher was Jiraiya, also one of the Sannin, and he had long been regarded by Jiraiya as the Child of Prophecy. He also received the full backing of the Hokage faction.
As a result, the struggle for the Hokage position between Orochimaru and Namikaze Minato lasted less than ten days before coming to an end, with Namikaze Minato ascending to the position of Konoha's Fourth Hokage with remarkable ease.
With the new Hokage established, numerous postwar matters were placed on the agenda, and one of them was directly related to the assembly of Ryūya's Team Thirty-One.
During the brutal Third Great Ninja War, the village had been preoccupied with resisting attacks from four major ninja villages, leaving no time to handle commissioned missions within the village. A massive backlog of missions had accumulated.
Now that the war was over, the village—having lost a large number of outstanding ninja—could no longer spare enough elite ninja to complete these missions. Naturally, genin squads like Ryūya's, who had graduated early, became the targets for mobilization.
Ryūya had no particular resistance to this.
After all, being a ninja was a "glorious profession" that lived by combat and missions.
As long as he wasn't being sent to a ninja war where he could lose his head at any moment, Ryūya was eager to take his first steps in his professional career and familiarize himself with this dangerous ninja world as soon as possible.
If he didn't take advantage of this rare period of peace to complete some low-level missions and build up experience, was he really supposed to wait until war broke out again a year later before going into action?
Ryūya wasn't that foolish!
This was a training ground located on the western side of Konoha Village. Although the area wasn't large, it was well equipped with various training tools and was designated specifically for some of the village's genin to train.
"Hey! Ryūya, over here!"
As soon as Ryūya reached the edge of the training ground, he saw his teammate Sagawa waving at him from afar.
Sagawa was a civilian-born ninja, one year older than Ryūya, and like him, a genin who had graduated early during the recent ninja war.
Ryūya noticed that dozens of people had already gathered in the area where Sagawa stood, all of them newly graduated Konoha genin just like the two of them.
It seemed that the genin teams summoned by the village were not limited to theirs alone.
"Sagawa."
As he walked over, Ryūya greeted him, then his gaze instinctively swept across the surrounding crowd.
After scanning them, Ryūya realized that not a single face was familiar from his memories.
This meant that the dozens of newly graduated Konoha genin before him were basically all nameless background characters who never even got a chance to appear.
In his previous life, the story of the Naruto world had mostly revolved around protagonists such as the Konoha Twelve, with little mention of other matters at the Ninja Academy.
This had led many people to believe that the Ninja Academy only graduated a few dozen students each year.
But that wasn't the case at all!
Konoha Village, as the foremost of the Five Great Ninja Villages, occupied the Fire Country, the most geographically advantaged land in the ninja world. The number of active ninja stationed in the village alone reached several thousand.
Every year, many ninja also lost their lives in wars and missions.
To maintain such a massive ninja force, it was absolutely impossible without a stable source of new blood.
Even after excluding the factor that some clan ninja did not need to go through Ninja Academy training, and considering the attrition and success rates during a ninja's growth, the number of students enrolled by the Ninja Academy each year would still be no fewer than several hundred.
What people saw in the manga and anime—Naruto and his peers—were merely the genius elite class of the Ninja Academy!
Even a "dead last" was only the dead last within that genius elite class.
Within the Ninja Academy, the difference in success rates between the genius elite class and the regular classes was enormous.
The students admitted into the genius elite class were either exceptionally talented prodigies, descendants of powerful clans, or children whose parents had made special contributions to the village.
To put it plainly, they were a group of geniuses and well-connected kids.
Of course, in name, such a genius elite class did not officially exist, and a small number of ordinary civilian ninja were also admitted.
As for the purpose—those in the know understood perfectly well.
If Ryūya's parents had died protecting the clan head before he entered the academy, he might have had a chance to slip into such a genius elite class himself.
Naturally, the teaching resources invested in this group by the academy were also the most abundant.
The ninja who graduated from these genius elite classes were the true backbone of Konoha Village!
Among the students who entered the Ninja Academy in the same year as Ryūya, geniuses like Kakashi had already become jōnin, while Guy, Asuma, and others were already chūnin—yet Ryūya, Sagawa, and the rest had only just become genin.
After graduation, there was also a certain gap in the treatment and opportunities enjoyed by the two groups.