4.

While the Hokage began his speech, Ichimaru sighed and shook his head slightly in defeat. His teacher in the arts of the soul and only an uncle from his mother's side, Kato Dan, didn't come.

<< 3 years ago, 1 year before the Second Shinobi World War ended, Konoha Ichimaru's house>>

"So you want to learn his cool jutsus from your uncle, huh?" - A confused, white-haired and slim man in his twenties asked.

"Um, I think they are so cool techniques, I mean you can travel anywhere you want and stay invisible at the same time." - His cousin's nephew replied with bright eyes and an excited face.

"I'm not against it, with your chakra reserve and control you can already do some very simple operations with Yin Spirit Release, but are you sure you have the time and energy for it?"

"It's not a big problem, I can help mom with Fuinjutsu whenever I want, and as for the clan technique lessons, I'm already far away from what my class is learning. I can already go into my mind space, so I can skip some classes."

"Okay, but first you have to ask your parents for permission, and you know that I'm not in the village very often, so you can't count on mine too much." - Dan sighed in defeat.

"Yeah, don't worry about permission, when mom comes back, I'll ask her." - Ichimaru replied excitedly - "And Uncle Dan, can you create a ghost that attacks enemies or disturbs them? It could be so cool." - "Yes, I was thinking about the power of the Horo Horo no Mi from One Piece, I always wanted to have that power as it can be a very good support ability and as I know from the anime and from my mother, he doesn't use something like that.

"Hahaha." - Dan tried to laugh, but he suddenly stopped, because he hadn't really thought of doing something like that, and with his understanding and control of chakra, it shouldn't be that hard. All he has to do is apply the Shadow Clone technique, which uses a concept of cloning chakra constructs, to Ghost Transformation Jutsu, although he won't be able to control someone else's body, but he might be able to disrupt their movements or most likely their jutsu. He began to think deeply about this matter. Ichimaru saw that this idea caught his uncle's attention and didn't disturb him.

After Akino returned home, she saw her cousin in deep thought and her son sitting next to him meditating, meditation helps to enter the mind space and after her son learned this technique, she often saw him just sitting in the lotus position with his eyes closed. But after a few seconds, Ichimaru opened his eyes and asked her permission to take some lessons from his uncle.

Actually, she wasn't against it, but she didn't want to disturb her cousin too much and after she said that Dan had won his concession and answered that it wasn't really a problem he could teach him the basics and he thought that Ichimaru would be able to learn his techniques since he already had enough foundation for the easy techniques of his clan and besides that, only he and his two cousins, although Akino mostly focused on Fuinjutsu, but she had some understanding in Ghost Release (Author: I'm going to call it like this).

So the next day, they started their lessons and on the 3rd day, Dan was able to create a ghost clone that could disturb the enemy to form Ninjutsu, this Ninjutsu was an A~S rank supporting skill, only one disadvantage was that he could only produce 3 clones at the moment and in addition to that, he had to stay in his body, because if he left his body, his Yin energy consumption was very high and he could only last for 1~2 minutes.

On the 4th day, Ichimaru was able to move his soul out of his body, but only his finger and only for 2~3 seconds and he felt on the ground from exhaustion. Dan was very proud and happy about his achievement and a little sad that he'd have to go on the S-rank mission the next day. But luckily for him, he still had an ace up his sleeve.

During the week when Ichimaru was studying with his clan's teachers, who were teaching him mostly clan skills and a little bit of clan taijutsu, the Yamanaka clan didn't train their children much in taijutsu, they only cared about their physique, in contrast to the Hyugas who mainly focused on physical strength and taijutsu. Suddenly, his mother came in and after apologizing, she left the classroom with Ichimaru. Without much explanation, they went to the hospital, Ichimaru saw his mother's worried and darkened face so he didn't ask anything and just followed her.

At the hospital entrance, they met his aunt Aria Kato and his 2 year old first cousin Shizune Nemoto, Aria had a pale face after Shizune's birth, she became very weak, she even quit the ninja administration where she worked, her husband died before Shizune was born and she could only count on her cousins for help, at the moment, they live in the Kato compound, it's a small area with 5 traditional Japanese houses.

Kato Clan signed a contract with Hashirama to join the village, but after they left their settlement, they were ambushed by other village forces and almost 78% of the clan died that day. Since they didn't really need money, they didn't rent houses because the Dan was an S-class ninja.

"Aria, did you see him? What happened? Takeshi sent an Anbu who said that he was badly injured because of the ambush on the mission." - Akino asked worriedly.

"Yes, he is in the operating room right now. Tsunade helped him a lot, she came to him at the right time. His comrades help that he killed every enemy, they said he invented some new ninjutsu and with it he was able to kill everyone, but the last one exploded and Dan lost his left leg and his internal organs were damaged". - Aria replied with a weak voice - "Tsunade is operating on him right now, but other medical ninjas said that he won't be able to be a ninja anymore, if it weren't for her, he would have the ability to use his chakra.

Hm, that's very good news, don't get me wrong, I'm not happy with what happened, he should have died, but he survived, that's really good news. But it's very strange, no one should have known that he and his team were on the S-rank mission, except for the Hokage and the elders of Konoha. - Although Ichimaru was serious - "It means that the rumors were true, he was dangerous for the Hokage and the elders because a) he was very popular among the ninjas and b) he wanted to become Hokage, but the village chiefs don't really need someone they can't control and who is not loyal to them. I have to be very careful with Hokage and other old men in the future.

After several hours, Tsunade came out of the operating room and told them that he was now handicapped and could not continue his ninja career. They were all depressed. Tsunade told them that she would find a way to help him at any cost.

After this incident, Tsunade started to live with Dan, Aria and little Shizune. Almost every day, Ichimaru came to visit them, even though Dan could no longer be a ninja, but he could still use his techniques and he started to teach his nephew, and after some years, he will start to teach his niece as well.

<< End of flashback >>

Last week, Ichimaru told Dan to come today, even though he didn't answer, Ichimaru still hoped that he would come. Somehow, he could understand why he didn't like to leave the mansion, it was most likely because of the pitying eyes of the people. Once powerful and proud, a ninja doesn't like to be looked at with pity.

After he finished his thoughts, he saw that the Hokage started to leave.

"Children, follow me now to the exams, we will test you in which class you will be assigned." - Some Chunin said loudly. The children started to follow him and the parents started to leave the area of the academy.