More interestingly, there were those who Shiki was sure were going to be his future teammates.
The only Aburame in the room and a short haired but quite pretty looking girl that felt like an Uchiha . . . But with glasses?
"Go ahead and find an open seat." The chunin said and Shiki did so with a nod.
The classroom had quite the steep incline as if built on a huge staircase so as to give all students a clear view of the teacher and blackboard.
As Shiki walked towards an open seat, he discretely eyed his two future teammates.
The Aburame was dressed in so many layers of clothing that if the boy had not previously been told by Mito that they were a girl, he would not be able to tell.
A thick dark grey hooded overcoat that was tightly closed and worn over what seemed to be a very thick, high collared black hoodie beneath it with the two hoods being pulled up to hide the upper part of her head. It was rather voluminous clothing.
Her face was half covered by the very high collar of her overcoat and beneath it the high collar of her hoodie but even then Shiki saw the hidden flash of a black mask that covered everything up to eyes who themselves were covered by black goggles with a thick dark grey frame.
Because of the overcoat, one could only see the bottom of what looked like thick loose black pants and shockingly shinobi boots rather than the usual open toed sandals.
'She looks like a human shaped bundle of clothes . . .' Shiki thought to himself.
It was quite adorable to look at because the girl seemed like a fluffy caricature of someone rather than a real person.
Or maybe Shiki's definition of cute was just weird.
The Uchiha teammate however, was not as covered up and the white haired boy could tell by her interested and knowing gaze that, like him, she might already know he would be her teammate.
Her outfit consisted of a red rimmed black qipao style dress with the Uchiha crest on the back, complemented by loose red knee shorts and black leggings that did not cover her feet as her black shinobi sandals showed.
The girl's short hair and red rimmed glasses made her look quite a lot like Uchiha Sarada.
'Still . . . An Uchiha with glasses . . . Maybe Sakura's genes were not the problem like the fans thought.' Shiki flippantly thought.
'I wonder how it works.' He continued to ponder.
'In Sarada's case, it was explained that while she normally needed glasses, it stopped being the case whenever she had her sharingan active . . .' It made the boy wonder exactly how the sharingan fixed the eye.
Not speculating further, Shiki walked up to the back of the class. The Uchiha girl seemed to be seated alone and since she was about to be his teammate, he thought there was no reason not to sit beside her.
"May I sit here?" The white haired boy asked with a smile.
"Of course!" The girl replied, almost as if startled he came by and asked.
'I'm pretty sure sitting here is expected since we probably both know we're going to be on the same team but . . . Maybe I was wrong and she doesn't actually know?' Shiki mused as he sat down.
The girl on the other hand was thinking along a different line.
'Can't believe he just came up and asked to sit with a smile.' She thought.
'With him being a prodigy and all, even being adopted by Uzumaki Mito-sama, I was sure he was going to be hard to get along with. Especially since I'm already bad at getting along with just about anyone.'
'Should I introduce myself?' The girl's internal thoughts continued.
'No . . . What if he thinks I'm bothersome?' She doubted.
'But he already spoke first and with a smile so he probably wouldn't mind . . .'
'Except if he was just being polite . . .' The poor girl couldn't make up her mind.
Socializing was already not her thing but now her father had directly told her to get along with this boy who would definitely become her teammate according to him.
Unaware of her internal fretting, Shiki inadvertently saved her from her downward internal spiral by speaking up first.
'The teacher seems to be giving a speech on the Will of Fire and about their precious academic journey so far . . . Might as well try to get to know my teammate.' The white haired boy thought.
"I already said it in front of the class but I'm Shiki. What's your name?" He casually inquired.
"Uchiha Mei." The girl answered in a somewhat cold and distant tone.
'Was that fine? That's how the others in the clan usually talk with everybody else.' Mei internally questioned.
Yes indeed. Socializing was not a skill in her repertoire.
"I see. Nice to meet you Mei-san." Shiki replied.
'Seems like a standard Uchiha response.' The boy internally nodded, unaware that the girl was actually faking that standard response and was internally fretful as hell.
"Hm." Mei nodded in acknowledgement to his reply, maintaining the standard Uchiha protocol for socializing with outsiders.
'Something is weird about her.' Shiki thought.
Mei refused to make eye contact but she wasn't being dismissive.
'Is she actually nervous and covering it up with that way of talking?' The boy internally questioned.
'Why is she nervous though? Just lacking confidence in general or something?' He had no way to know for now but figured he could read the girl better by watching her performance in the exams.
Almost immediately after that however, both Shiki and Mei were pulled out of their thoughts by the chunin teacher beginning a final explanation of what the graduation exam would entail.
"Many of you may already be aware of the ins and outs of the graduation exam but we will go over them one last time anyway, just to be sure." He began the explanation.
"It will be a composite exam with several theoretical tests and a series of practical challenges, each of them will contribute varying percentages towards your final score which will in turn determine your future."
"The theoretical exams will cover Math, Languages, History, Shinobi Theory and the Will of Fire."
"The practical exam will be split into Shuriken and Kunai Throwing, Combat Exam, Ninjutsu Evaluation and an obstacle course."
"Should you attain a passing combined score, the teachers will carefully divide you into three man squads based on team balancing."
'Hmph. Yeah right.' Shiki derisively thought.
As time passed since he was born in this new life, Shiki began to notice several discrepancies between the series and reality.
The extensive and complex nature of the academy graduation exams was one of them and the more detailed ranking and promotion system for shinobi as well.
On the latter issue, while in the series it seemed as if the Chunin Exam was the only official method of promotion with few exceptions, in reality it was only one of several.
There were also Battlefield Promotions, Special Merit Promotions and Direct Promotions.
They were all relatively simple and straightforward, the first covered wartime situations when promotions were required to be streamlined and free of cumbersome procedures as efficiency was key in such precarious times.
The second referred to shinobi with great achievements that merited a promotion. Things like having a great performance in a particularly important mission, creating especially valuable jutsu or recovering valuable resources for the village all qualified.
Direct Promotions were the simplest. The head of the village, the Kage in the Five Great Shinobi Nations' case, could directly promote an individual should they feel their skills are worthy of it, even if they lack any of the regular conditions for promotion.
In this very real world, Naruto and Sasuke with their godlike abilities would never remain as genin for some sort of gag.
As for the rankings, there were more subdivisions. Genin, elite genin, chunin, elite chunin, special jonin, jonin, elite jonin. Those were the ranks from lowest to highest.
For the current Shiki, the first two were the important ones.
When a shinobi successfully graduated from the academy, things did not go as mentioned in the series where only 9 out of 27 graduates actually become genin. That made no sense and would severely hamper the village's military growth.
The truth was that 9 out of 27 graduates from each graduating class of which there could be multiple, became elite genin under jonin instructors because they were determined to be talented and worthy of special care.
Meanwhile, the other 18 would become regular genin with minimal support that had to form teams, work under chunin or limit themselves to low level missions until they either caught the attention of the higher ups or managed to raise their skills and pass the chunin exams.
After promotion to chunin, there were two ways to become an elite chunin, being a powerful and well rounded veteran who can no longer progress further due to their talent or proving oneself as a prodigy sure to be promoted.
In the latter case, becoming an elite chunin is like the village's acknowledgement of a shinobi's talent and potential.
For the sake of these talented shinobi's progress, the 9 graduates that the higher ups see the most promise in, are grouped up into squads.
Balance?
Putting weak and talentless graduates in the same team as the top graduate?
Utter nonsense.
Clan children almost always became elite genin with civilian born shinobi sometimes managing to catch the eye of a higher up or straight up being used to make up numbers for the three top squads.
Although not discussed in the original series, of the Original 9 Konoha Rookies, only Sakura was a perfectly normal civilian born graduate, the others were clanborn or the actual jinchuriki of the village.
'But of course, not everybody is privy to these matters. It is an open secret amongst higher ranked shinobi and lower ranked veterans but for everybody else . . . The smart cookies that figure it out tend to be clever enough not to speak of it too.' Shiki mused.
'Still, the system is on my side in this particular case so I'm going to take advantage. Hate not the Player but the Game.'
+++++
Hey, Author here!
Just a reminder that you can read up to a FULL MONTH ahead of this site on pa-treon.
I'm trying to become a full time Author now and I'm not going to be starting any new novels just so I can make sure this one is properly completed.
Find those sweet advanced chapters on pa-treon.com/lusoba without the -