Hokage: Ryo's Path

Chapter 43  Concurrent Graduation

 In the Yamanaka household, Ryo and Inoichi discussed the Healing Stone. Inoichi, being the head of his family, he should be dumb to not realize the great benefit that this idea could bring.

Among the 3 clans of the Ino-Shika-Cho alliance, the Nara's are in charge of maintaining the normal operation of Konoha's Pharmaceutical System. This means that they are mainly in charge of providing medical herbs inside Konoha.

The income that they get from that is enormous. In the Manga, that's why they use their pills as they like.

The Akimichi's secret pills are the origin of soldier food pills. Therefore, all soldier food pill sales contribute to the Akimichi's income.

Only the Yamanaka's have no specialty business and no share in income of any supplies. Most of the clan's expenses are covered by the rewards that its members get for mission.

This Stone that Ryo came up with made Inoichi see a bright opportunity for the tribe to improve their living conditions. He approved Ryo's idea and encouraged him to carry on.

A few days later, Ryo and Inoichi were summoned by the 3rd.

In his office, the Hokage and Jiraya were waiting for the two to arrive. The latter delivered a report to the 3rd the previous day mentioning Ryo's experiments with the healing stones.

The Hokage understood well the value of such a stone to the village. This will actually give Konoha a huge edge in the upcoming war, and increase its Ninja's survival rates greatly.

The two Yamanaka's, Ryo and Inoichi arrived at the office. The 3rd went straight to the point and asked: "Ryo, could these stones be mass-produced?"

Ryo shook his head. Even though he didn't even give himself time to sleep, he couldn't make many stones. So the 3rd asked him:

"Then, how many can we make per day?"

"A maximum of 30 a day." Ryo answered him after giving it some thought.

The 3rd nodded and Jiraya said that his own estimate was not so different. Judging from Jiraya's report, the Sand has internal problems currently and they shouldn't be able to go to war anytime soon.

With the pace of 30 stones a day, there will be plenty of reserves for Konoha before the war starts. This made the 3rd very satistfied.

"Inoichi, I think you also understand that this kind of stone should have a great significance to the village and to the Yamanaka's. As the head of your clan, tell us how you think things should go?"

"Hokage sama, the village is responsible of helping our clan in buying jade. And out of each sale of a Healing Stone, 30% of the revenue should go to the village." Selling the stones should be under the Yamanaka's control, Inoichi knew that well.

After that, the two went on for quite some bargaining. Finally, they settled on making the village buy the Jade, and on giving it 40% of the income in return.

The two sides were very satisfied with this result; and Ryo's mission in the hospital was put to a halt: Making the stones was his new mission, one that's considered B-Rank.

A bit more than a month later, Ryo was making the stones in the 3rd training ground when Yugao entered through the door under Kakashi's guidance.

Yugao's performance in Kenjutsu wasn't comparable to that of the super talented Kakashi, but it was still great compared to most people.

However, Kakashi discovered a lot of her basic flaws after spending over a month teaching her. Sakumo pointed out before that his son never puts his heart into anything unless he sees how serious the problem is. Now, Kakashi was no longer so repellent to teaching Yugao.

Ryo asked him: "Kakashi, do you want to go to the academy today?"

"The academy? Why?" Kakashi asked Ryo.

"Rin and Obito are graduating today, didn't you know?"

Kakashi shook his head. Actually, even Ryo didn't know about the graduation. But just a moment ago, while he was making a stone, Ryo perceived it with his Sage mode.

"Wanna go see them?" Kakashi asked.

"Okay!" Ryo hasn't seen Obito and Rin for quite a long time.

"Yugao, we're going to the academy to see our classmates' graduation exams. Do you want to go?"

"No I can't Ryo Nii-san, I want to practice harder."

After some hard work, Yugao was finally calling Ryo Nii-san instead of Ryo san. This made him really happy.

So he and Kakashi went to the Ninja academy and were there just in time to catch up with Kurenai taking the exam. Passing it was no problem for the girl from the prestigious Yuhi clan.

After that, it was Asuma's role, whose exam went smoothly, as its subject was fire release.

"Next, Might Guy!"

Whenever Guy was tested before, students laughed. His Ninjutsu skills were bad, and he couldn't perform Genjutsu. He was only good with Taijutsu.

The school's graduation assessment is generally based on testing students with all 3 techniques. But now that there's a war that's about to break out, Konoha needed more Ninjas, more Cannon Fodder to enter the battlefield.

Guy was able to impress the 3rd, and the director put him in the elite class because of that.

Unlike other kids, children in the elite classes were the one that are expected to be the pillars of the future of Konoha. These kids usually end up with elite Jonins as instructors.

The drums of war were knocking. So the teacher was free to determine the subject for each student. For Gay, it was Taijutsu, so he excelled with ease.

(Translator note: Didn't the 6 year old Kakashi beat Guy in the the Chunin exam? Now Kakashi is 8 so, shouldn't Guy be a Genin already? Well, maybe this is all the butterfly effect or something.)

"Next, Obito Uchiha… Obito Uchiha… Are you there?!"

The examiner's deliberate repetition made the students laugh out loud. Because he was an Uchiha, he was put in the elite class. But his performance was only slightly better than Guy's, and he had this problem with punctuality. He was turning little by little into Konoha's "King of Late".

The subject of Obito's exam was [Cloning Jutsu]. The Uchiha clan teaches this technique to their children at a very young age. So Obito had no problem with it.

Later on, it was Rin's turn. Like Sakura, she had great Chakra control.

After the last student's exam was completed, all of the members of the elite class had easy success. Afterwards, their teacher gave them a lengthy speech, after which he offered them their forehead protectors. With that, Obito and the others officially became Ninja.

"Rin, Obito, this way!"

"Kakashi Yaro, Ryo Kuzo, I graduated too!" Obito's was being the usual Obito as he was yelling to the two.

"Kakashi, Ryo, what brought you here?" Rin asked.

"We were bored and we came to see your exam." Ryo answered her.

While the 4 were chatting, other student noticed the two familiar faces.

"Are those Kakashi and Ryo?"

Both of them have been established as examples for the students. Kakashi was the youngest graduate in the history of the academy, and the youngest Chunin ever. Ryo was a great medic with skills comparable to those of Tsunade.

"Kakashi, Obito, Rin, this sounds like trouble. I didn't come to deal with all of these students, I just came by to see you and invite you on a barbecue to celebrate your graduation. See you guys in the barbecue shop next to the 3rd training ground." As Ryo finished his words, he activated his lightning Chakra mode and instantly left.

Kakashi also did the same thing, and left them there. Obito and Rin looked at each other and rushed out of the crowd towards the Barbecue shop.