The days of being a puppeteer in Konoha

Chapter 1 Opening Ceremony

September of the forty-fourth year of the Konoha calendar.

Although it is early autumn, the remaining heat of summer has not yet dissipated.

On a scorching morning, the new semester began at Konoha Ninja School.

"Where the leaves dance, the fire will also continue. The flames will illuminate the village and allow new leaves to sprout again..."

On the high platform in the playground, Sarutobi Hiruzen, the then Sandaime Hokage, was giving a speech at the opening ceremony of the new school year.

The content is still the same old stuff.

It's nothing more than clichés like the will of fire, the spirit of sacrifice, and we are all lumberjacks.

But the young ninjas in the audience who had never seen the world were still as excited as if they had been injected with chicken blood, with their fists clenched tightly and their eyes full of fanaticism.

I'm afraid that as long as the Sandaime gives the order, they will pick up kunai, shout "waaaaagh!", and rush to the front line of the battlefield without hesitation.

"Tsk tsk, the Sandaime's public speaking skills are getting better and better. If it weren't for the opening ceremony, I would have thought it was a pyramid scheme conference..."

At the end of the line of teachers next to the podium, a handsome young man with black hair in a high ponytail was watching the scene in front of him calmly, but he couldn't help but make a mocking sound in his heart.

There was no way. Nineteen years had passed since he was reincarnated into this world under the name Kimura Hideki.

After years of struggling in the real and cruel ninja world, his feelings for the original work had long been worn out.

Although the third generation in front of him is not as cunning as the conspiracy theories say.

However, having personally experienced all the unreasonable systems of Konoha, Hideki found it difficult to respect him.

Now, after hearing the other party's speech on the Will of Fire, he was completely unmoved and even felt like laughing.

Perhaps all that is left in my heart is a little sympathy for the children in front of me.

Hideki couldn't help but look at the portrait of the First Hokage on the cliff in the distance.

"Alas, I wonder what the Ninja God would think when he sees this scene..."

"Wasn't his original intention of establishing the ninja village to allow children to study and play freely instead of going to the battlefield early?"

However, Hideki's slight emotion soon turned into a silent sigh and dissipated in the fanatical air around him with the wind.

Because he actually didn't have much capital to sympathize with the children...

As a time traveler, Hideki does not have amazing bloodline nor any extraordinary cheats. He is just an ordinary orphan.

The only thing worth mentioning in his life was that after obtaining half of a seized puppetry textbook from a white-haired senior ninja, he relied on the knowledge and imagination from his previous life and successfully mastered the secret puppetry of Sand Village through self-study.

Not long ago, he was even promoted to a special jonin by the village, becoming the object of envy and hatred of many civilian ninjas.

But Hideki didn't feel very proud.

Because he knew that in the ninja world which would become more and more troubled in the future, let alone the special jonin, even the real jonin would be nothing more than a slightly larger ant, whose life and death would not be in their own control.

Let alone the distant future, the footsteps of the Third Ninja World War are getting closer and closer...

If Hideki doesn't want to lose his life in the war that will engulf the entire ninja world in a few years, he must seize this last peaceful time and become stronger as quickly as possible.

The reason why Hideki appeared in the Ninja School at this time was precisely for this purpose.

The puppeteer's strength, in addition to his own skills, depends largely on the strength of the puppet itself.

The strength of the puppet comes from the accumulation of various resources, such as better materials, more sophisticated processing equipment and technology, more advanced mechanism design and rune formulas...

This makes puppetry different from other ninjutsu that I've thought of, and it's actually more inclined towards the technological side.

What matters is the cluster effect and collective wisdom, rather than relying on one person working behind closed doors or fighting alone.

Even if there was a genius like Scorpion, it would be impossible for him to master such advanced puppetry at such a young age if he had not inherited the years of accumulation of the Sunagakure puppeteers.

As the only puppeteer in Konoha, Hideki once improved his puppetry skills by stealing the skills of enemy puppeteers and their puppets on the battlefield of Sand Village.

It’s a pity that the bonus period is now over.

Ordinary puppeteers or puppets can no longer provide him with much reference value, but he dare not provoke powerful puppeteers easily, so he has fallen into a bottleneck period.

In desperation, Hideki had to turn his attention back to the Hidden Leaf Village, which he loved and hated.

Because he has fully realized that if he wants to continue on this path, he cannot rely solely on stealing skills and working in isolation, but must establish a puppetry research and development system centered on himself.

Therefore, helping Konoha train more puppeteers and using this as a bargaining chip to leverage more talents and resources for his own use is almost Hideki's only choice.

Becoming a teacher at a ninja school and teaching puppetry is the first step in Hideki's plan...

……

The Sandaime's lengthy speech continued.

Judging from the way he's talking, I'm afraid it won't be over in a short time.

Hideki managed to hold back a yawn and decided to take this opportunity to continue polishing his plan to become stronger in his mind.

Just then, someone suddenly approached secretly and poked his arm with his elbow, interrupting Hideki's thoughts.

Hideki tilted his head and saw a young man with red inverted triangle facial wrinkles on his cheeks winking at him.

"Senior Jaw, why are you here?" Hideki asked in a low voice with a little surprise.

The young man's name is Inuzuka Jaw, he is a few years older than Hideki and is also a special jonin.

Hideki and the other party were teammates for a period of time, so the two of them have a good relationship.

Hearing Hideki's question, Inuzuka Jaw's smile suddenly fell, and he sighed:
"Don't mention it. I was doing well in the tracking class, but I got unlucky and was sent to teach a training class this year."

"Otherwise, is there anyone who would be so stupid as to volunteer to be a teacher?"

At this point, Inuzuka Jaw also asked curiously:

"By the way, why are you here, Hideki?"

Hideki smiled and said:

"What a coincidence, I am also here to teach a training course, puppetry, and I volunteer."

"..."

Inuzuka Jaw's expression froze when he heard that.

I didn't expect that the fool was right next to me...

The so-called training course is actually a special course set up by the school. At the beginning, it was just part of Princess Tsunade's plan to promote medical ninja reform.

That is, additional courses will be offered in ninja schools to screen and provide early training for students with talent in medical ninjutsu, in order to shorten the time required to train medical ninjas.

The ultimate goal is to have a medical ninja on every team.

Although Tsunade's plan was not entirely successful, the system continued.

Even today when manpower is increasingly scarce, various departments have begun to follow the example of medical classes and offer courses in schools in order to compete for and train talents in advance.

In addition, the school also opened various courses such as agriculture, court etiquette, and flower arrangement to facilitate students to disguise themselves as specific identities and occupations when performing tasks in the future.

After this series of developments, the current training course system was finally formed.

And the reason why Hideki was able to open a puppetry class in school so smoothly was thanks to this system.

Since training courses are much more professional than subject courses, and there are only two classes a week, each department usually sends people to serve as part-time teachers.

Apparently, Inuzuka Jaw was drafted into the school by his tracking squad and had no choice but to come to the school to teach.

He hated this so much that naturally he didn't believe that Hideki did it voluntarily. He even imagined in his mind a cliché scenario where the Konoha high-ranking officials persecuted a civilian genius and demanded that he hand over the inheritance.

But he was also a person of little influence and could not help much, so he could only choose some nice words to comfort Hideki:
"It's good to teach puppetry~"

"Hideki, you were sent to teach at the school. This means that the village should take puppetry very seriously."

"If you can train a few more puppeteers for Konoha, then it wouldn't be impossible for you to establish a new puppetry department and become the head of it in the future!"

"Senior Jaw, you really think ahead. I haven't even started my first class yet."

Hideki waved his hand modestly.

"Besides, puppetry is not that easy to learn. I am now worried about whether I can teach my students."

"Right……"

Inuzuka Jab suddenly seemed to have thought of something, and stroked his stubble and said,

"Come to think of it, Sunagakure's puppetry probably doesn't have a very good reputation in school."

"If you want the children to be willing to learn puppetry, Hideki, you may have to put in more effort..."

Hideki was slightly stunned when he heard this, but he quickly understood what Inuzuka Jab meant.

As a puppeteer, he naturally knew that puppetry had a bad reputation in Konoha and even in the ninja world.

After all, traditional puppeteers all have eerie patterns painted on their faces, and their fighting style is to hide in the dark, controlling the terrifying-looking puppets to kill the enemy with hidden weapons and poisons.

It's impossible not to be annoying when you take this vulgar behavior to the extreme.

However, since Inuzuka Jab specifically reminded us, this problem might be even more serious in the ninja school...

That's right. During the Second Ninja World War, the Sand Village puppet masters led by Chiyo caused Konoha to suffer a lot.

If you think about it, the parents of today's students were the main force participating in the war at that time.

Children have been exposed to puppetry since childhood, and some even have relatives who died at the hands of puppeteers, so they naturally have a very bad impression of puppetry...

After figuring it all out, Hideki couldn't help but wipe a cold sweat from his heart, and secretly felt lucky.

If Inuzuka Jaw hadn't reminded him, he would probably have to wait until tomorrow when he saw the empty classroom before he could truly realize the seriousness of the problem.

Although this type of training course will give students a one-month selection period, they can freely visit various training courses and then choose which courses to take.

But Hideki knows the importance of first impressions, and the success or failure of the first class largely determines the outcome of the course.

You know, his entire plan is based on this puppetry class. If it fails, then the subsequent plans cannot proceed normally.

"Alas, it seems that the previously planned course content needs to be changed..."

Hideki pondered in his heart.

"The first thing is to change everyone's prejudice against puppetry and create a new style of puppetry that is different from the gloomy and terrifying style of Sunagakure and has Konoha's characteristics."

"This was actually already included in the previous plan, but now it seems that we have to step up our efforts."

"But prejudice is like a mountain. It is impossible to completely change it in a short period of time."

"So in this process, it seems that we have to make the courses as novel and interesting as possible in order to attract and retain more students."

"In that case, perhaps we should still use the method of combining education with entertainment..."

Hideki sighed in his heart, seeming a little hesitant.

Adding more interesting projects to teaching and letting students learn while having fun is indeed a good way to stimulate everyone's enthusiasm for puppetry.

But in terms of efficiency, this is obviously not as good as serious hard work and practice, otherwise it would have been fully promoted long ago.

It's only a few years away from the Third Ninja World War. Hideki, who is racing against time to advance his plan to become stronger, really has no patience to reduce his efficiency and play house with the little brats...

However, when Hideki thought of this, his eyes unconsciously looked at the little ninjas not far away.

For some reason, seeing those childish little faces, Hideki's slightly impetuous thoughts gradually calmed down, and then he breathed a long sigh of relief.

"That's fine..."

“The efficiency of learning through entertainment is indeed not high.”

"But in the long run, letting children maintain their passion for puppetry may be the best option to cultivate real puppetry talents."

With this thought in mind, Hideki couldn't help but look at the portrait of the first Hokage on the cliff in the distance again.

It is a great pity that it is very difficult for me to help realize Hashirama Senju's beautiful vision of not letting children go to the battlefield.

But if it is just to let the children gain a little happiness in the process of learning and add some bright colors to their gloomy childhood, he can still do it.

When Hideki finally made the decision, the opening ceremony was just coming to an end.

"…Then I declare that from today, the new school year of Ninja School officially begins!"

As Sarutobi Hiruzen finished his words, there was a burst of warm applause from the audience below the stage.

And Hideki's new teaching career officially kicked off at this moment...

　A new book is launched, please collect it and read it later.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)