When Rei decided to be more passive in his foreign policies for the following years, it meant the new age of development for the hidden villages under his command.

Kirigakure was the first one that was heavily affected by that decision. It was not because of Ringo, rather than Yagura who was like a chipmunk high on coffee. The guy really wanted to make Kirigakure better and he definitely showed it by annoying Rei enough that he deemed it important to finally start the reforms in Kirigakure rather than spend even one more day with the exuberant former Fourth Mizukage.

Frankly, at times, Rei even regretted taking the guy in. Who cares about confusing Akatsuki and denying them access to the Third Tail if he had to suffer his overly excitable nature every time reforming Kiri was mentioned? For such a serious kind of guy, Yagura sure acted like a kid once he realized he no longer needed to carry the burden of being a leader.

Years slowly started to pass by and Kirigakure felt the reforms fully.

The very first thing that changed was the graduation exam. No longer did the kids fight each other to the death for the right to become ninja. That said, neither Ringo nor Rei felt that the tradition was fundamentally bad. It took a lot of discussions with Yagura but in the end, even the turtle midget had to give in to their arguments.

The tradition in itself was good. It just needed a big overhaul to be efficient.

The final graduation exam was still a battle between the students but it was no longer to the death. After all, the village had to know the approximate level of its graduates, plus such an event could serve as entertainment for the local populace, bringing in a bit of profit in the entrance fees.

That said, the graduates were still told to do their best. The battles were still supervised by a Jonin ranked ninja so if any death occurred, it would imply the proctor is not apt to be a Jonin if he can't even stop an academy student from delivering a killing blow to another academy student. Hence, the proctors made damn sure to pay attention no matter how bored they were due to watching two novices fight.

That was not the only reform for the Academy. Not by a long shot. The academy curriculum was completely overhauled too, implementing chakra control exercises and some low-level water Jutsu in preparation to learn Kirigakure no Jutsu as one part of the graduation exam.

Honestly, the only reason why academies did not teach any useful Jutsus or chakra control exercises was simple. Many students drop out or fail the graduation exam and the villages simply do not want civilians with knowledge of how to improve their control over the chakra. After all, the more widespread such things are, the more people can experiment and actually make their own Jutsus. People who are not affiliated with the village. People who are civilians and can freely travel. It would have been a disaster to start them on their training only for them to later on leave. The worst part, the villages would be unable to even mark them a nuke-nin because... well, academy students are not yet a part of the ninja ranks.

The solution to this problem was surprisingly simple.

The village just has to guarantee that everybody would pass the academy.

Granted, it was a nice little theory but it was a lot harder to manage such a feat in practice. Basically, Ringo, which really means Ao, created a system where every graduate has five chances to graduate from the academy. The graduating age was still ten years old but the graduation rules were a bit different. Everybody could fail a graduation exam four times, which meant returning to the academy for an additional year.

Flunking once would be fine but twice? Well, let's just say the entire class would be silently mocking such a person, not to mention those who flunked more than twice. Such a person would be blatantly obvious in the class as he or she would be older than everybody else, signifying his or her ineptitude.

It was meant to motivate kids in that position to work harder. Naturally, the teachers would watch those like hawks to make sure there are no special circumstances involved.

The curriculum was not really all that hard. It was set up with ten years old orphan kids in mind. The clan children should have no problem at all and could probably graduate by seven years old as long as they learned the necessary Jutsu that were being tested. Heck, even the orphans should have no problem as long as they put in the necessary effort.

That said, Ringo made sure nobody could graduate early. If somebody special was found, he or she would simply be offered a special tutelage for the remainder of the academy years. There was no need to send kids under ten years of age to the battlefield. Such a practice was counterproductive considering the low percentage of them that would actually return.

If somebody actually managed to flunk five consecutive years... it would be a helluva suspicious matter. If a fifteen years old kid can't manage what an average ten-year-old can, then something is either very, very suspicious about him and his performance is faked, which should have been spotted by the teachers during all the academy years... or, the kid is simply so freakingly stupid, he is not fit to be a ninja. In such a case, there is no need to worry about him spreading chakra control techniques, much less worry about him actually creating a technique by himself.

Hence, the major problem of Kirigakure was on its way to being solved.

Nobody complained about bloody graduation exams that perpetually halved the graduating class, killing off many late bloomers in the process and slowly crippling the Kirigakure's ninja force. And the actual number of graduating kids would effectively double with their quality improving.

In just a few years, the Kirigakure's council predicted Kiri's forces to actually catch up to other major hidden villages number-wise.

Naturally, such statistics caused the Kiri ninjas to revere Ringo as their savior. In her hands, the village was starting to thrive both economically and militaristically.

Ao could only cry in the corner, muttering about not being given his just credit.

And Ringo?

She couldn't care less...