His parents then he guesses. (He doesn't know any other relatives and should probably fix that... Which he doesn't say out loud. Maybe his parents had like a clan photo album).

The clerk hums and runs their fingers over the racks until they reach the correct scroll. They unroll it out on the floor and tap a small circle on one end. With a puff a smoke, a pile of several bookcases worth of books appear on top of the scroll.

Definitely his mom, though that's significantly smaller than her library at home. Probably because the her of this world hasn't had centuries to develop one and read...

He starts sorting through the books, keeping: at least one cookbook, nonfiction (which seems to be his mom's stuff; the fiction books don't look her taste. Maybe his dad), and anything that looks highly personal. Photo albums, journals... A fit of nostalgia has him looking for a poetry book. He finds a very small one, not the reams his mom'd written and read to him. Most of the poems aren't suitable for kids, but, it's still his mom's handwriting.

He ends up with slightly less than half the initial pile.

The clerk makes a note of which ones he's taking, seals the rest back up, and fetches a little hand cart to help him take the books home.

He nods, sets those up in his 'bedroom' (which is more a study, he'll probably be sleeping in the living room soon), and sets in to read about geography and politics and history... Plus what they know about science, but that's something his mom is less interested in and also not his field.

The continent (as far as the books are concerned, there's only the one worth talking about) is divided into countries, called the Elemental Nations, each ruled by a daimyo. The five largest nations are Land of Fire, Land of Wind, Land of Stone, Land of Lightning, and Land of Water. Each of these is also home to a great ninja village; Konohagakure, Sunagakure, Iwagakure, Kumogakure, and Kirigakure. Smaller nations often also have ninja villages, but those are smaller as well. It's unclear which way the causality flows.

The villages are a relatively recent arrangement, only about a hundred years old. In that time, there have been three Shinobi World Wars, though this is still a vast improvement on the world before villages, which was essentially just constant fighting everywhere.

That sounds vaguely like what he kind of remembers of pre-Imperial history. Constant fighting. Factionalism. But it's weird, even prior to the planets really being open it'd been known multiple exist, and people knew there were other continents.

How do you even fit three wars into under a hundred years, anyways. The handful of squabbles among frontier planets he's heard about can easily burn for decades.

But clearly they've adapted before to massive social changes. He... Is increasingly sure his goal, beyond just getting home, should be fixing this planet. He usually doesn't care that much but they are so far below minimum standards. The international penalty for invasion would probably even be waived and that effectively never happens.

There are some descriptions of the wars in the books. An invasion might be possible, but would certainly not be easy.

Yeah, hostile takeovers almost never work out well for anyone. But - if he can get the Empire, and the Empress has several hundred forks and each can individually flatten a team of archmages... Though the usual 'be conspicuously a good deal until people agree on their own to enter the fold' is enough for getting frontier planets in at a decent clip, probably would work here within a few generations, he just... The thought of leaving this place as is sits ill with him.

Still, he can at least try his hand at unfucking their politics from the inside. He's unlikely to make things worse.

So: he'll keep his head down. He'll learn chakra, and the assorted facts about this world. He'll help Naruto out, because what the fuck. He'll work on his spells - he's expecting to be probably up to second level spells, maybe some third level spells, by the time he graduates, which is far behind his previous peak of six level spells, but, well, you do what you can. It's slower without a structure of existing spells in place, and without being able to openly experiment too much.

Over time, the village settles down and the Uchiha massacre fades into memory.

And about six months later, a new student arrives in his class. She introduces herself as Chihiro and evinces no emotion at all as she takes an empty seat behind and to the left of Sasuke.

Creepy.

He doesn't bother introducing himself to her. (He's kind of busy keeping Naruto from biting Kiba.)

(He doesn't have a problem with rough-housing but classrooms are not the place.)

He's polite when they get rotated into group projects or spars together (or against each other), though.

Chihiro consistently excels at schoolwork, but loses spars often enough to stay in the middle of the rankings. Though when she's fighting Sasuke, it's hard to see how she loses. He might get the sense she's trying to push him.

He doesn't respond very strongly to provocation, and he doesn't show signs of being used to a different sized body - by now his forms are precise, textbook perfect, and he's shading into building on those. He definitely watches her, especially when they spar, picking apart all the oddities once the inconsistency in her skill level shows itself.

Something's more rotten than usual, but he's not sure what.

Hard to tell, really. Chihiro might as well not exist outside of school.

And then, almost before you'd know it, four years have passed and it's time for the graduation exam.

He doesn't find anything exceptionally interesting or groundbreaking in his delves into both the public library and his family's books. He helps Naruto with his schoolwork, but not enough to keep the boy from failing - and apparently having an adventure Sugira scolds him for.

Rebuilding his spells is glacial. Usually, you write the spell out, burn it into your mind, then the casting of it erases it from your mind - or, if you're casting from a scroll, from the scroll itself. This means that he only remembers spells he has active. Which is his cantrips, which don't get erased. He doesn't have his written out spellbook, and he's by the standard rules of magic completely incapable of remembering anything but the end effects of spells.

But his cantrips contain building blocks. Pieces of greater works. And he's able to build on those... But it takes him years, and especially without being able to live-fire test anything beyond first level spells is currently out of his grasp. At least he's managed a total of nine of the first level spells (though he can only cast four in a day), which should form a good foundation for future research. He's specialized towards conjuration spells, set aside enchantment and necromancy. (Conjuration is the path with teleportation and movement spells, so, is his best bet for getting home).

He easily graduates top of his class.

The day after the exam, the make-up of their genin teams are announced. Sugira will be on Team Seven with Chihiro, who was second in the class, and Naruto. Their jounin instructor will be Hatake Kakashi.

One by one, the other teams are called by their jounin and leave the classroom. By the end of the morning, only the three of them are left waiting.

"When's he gonna get here," Naruto whines. "It's been forever - Sasuke we should trap the door - "

"What happens if you succeed and what happens when you fail," Sugira asks, sounding kind of bored.

"Argh!" Naruto flops back on the floor. "He decides he doesn't like me if I succeed and I get in trouble either way. I always get in trouble, and no one likes me. So, nothing."

"Attacking a fellow Konoha shinobi in the absence of a direct order or an immediate threat to the village is prohibited."

Naruto sticks his tongue out at her.

"Embarrassing someone isn't attacking them. Naruto won't do damage - though our sensei might not be the only one to come through the door."

"Wouldn't want to catch Iruka-sensei," Naruto says, amiably.