>>5793042>>5793045>>5793049>>5793052>>5793069>>5793075>>5793105>>5793179You have no real problem passing the final on your first try and easily earn your way into advanced classes. Everyone does except for Naoki and Shizuka. Naoki is stuck in remedial hell for botching his Shurikenjutsu, and so is Shizuka for failing her written exams. Katsuro almost failed, but he managed to scrape by with the bare minimum of success on everything, which was actually impressive in its own way because it required a lot of intelligence to calculate the exact amount of effort required for him to skate by without being harassed.
Everyone who passed gets to have things really open up in the fourth year. You’re essentially cut loose to study Ninjutsu in any way you see fit, so you start spending a lot more time having tea with Shigure-Sensei and some of his students, none of which you really know all that well.
Daigo even joins you there semi-frequently, being that he’s the class runner up in ninjutsu. Daigo has turned out relatively balanced, with an emphasis on strength but low precision and staying power in whatever he does. He’s upper echelon in taijutsu now, and can blast the fire analogue of your Water Bullet: The Fire Bullet technique. He just lacks stamina and his hand seals also blow.
Masami also makes appearances in Shigure-Sensei’s classes even though she hasn’t really developed an elemental release . Her crabs are pretty impressive though, and she has the defensive acumen to allow them to do a lot of her work for her while she supports them. You also see that she’s started using weapons, being not-bad with a set of sai, though without them she lacks any real kind of physical power.
Junpei is getting deep into developing poisons and a bit of medical jutsu. As usual he’s fairly impenetrable, and you’re beginning to realize that despite being fairly amiable he might legitimately be a sociopath because he keeps mentioning how he tests his poisons on little forest critters.
Naoki was going full-bore into medical jutsu before getting dropped into remedial classes. Apparently he liked the idea of being capable of saving lives as well as taking them. He’s got a fairly stoic and spartan atmosphere to him by now: Not scared of the idea that someone who crosses him might be turned into a red stain, but also willing to pull his punches if it’s not necessary to absolutely curbstomp. He’s still terrifying in melee.
Katsuro spends his free time in advanced classes playing wargames. As in, actual ninja wargames that are meant to simulate real tactical conditions. Turns out that despite barely passing his classes the kid has a fairly firm sense for the push-and-pull that goes into strategic level thinking.
