Kiss! "I'm the best supreme ruler in part because of that!"

Kisses! "We, my dear, will simply have to agree to disagree on that."

"Pfah, I say. Pfah!"

Giggle. "Perhaps you shall simply have to prove the supremacy of math to me, then, and I will give up my math-free ways."

"...maybe."

"Why maybe?"

"Oh that 'maybe' was just a 'now I'm planning a detailed lesson plan from basic arithmetic to number theory' sort of thoughtful frown."

"I've actually studied up to calculus - it is important for some jutsu theory, and you need math for sniping - I just really don't like it."

"What do you not like about it?"

"...It's hard, and not in a fun and challenging way? It's also boring and too - still."

"...pretty sure no one taught you maths right."

"I mean, we learned math pretty much the same way we learned everything, which was by rote. My older brother taught me jutsu differently, so I liked that, but basically the entirety of learning stuff was boring, even though some topics were interesting. Though I think I might also just not have a math-oriented brain."

"Maybe you don't but teaching maths by rote is—can you imagine being taught music by rote?"

"Yeah the clan education system's kinda horrible, but... It's not really meant to produce well-educated citizens, it's meant to produce... basically weapons. Like, I wasn't on a path to test for an academy or a bureaucratic job, I was learning what I needed for infiltration and assassination missions, healing, chores, raising the next generation - that sort of thing. Boys don't even get much schooling past, like, age ten, and most clans - including ours until recently - have boys entering a purely combat path even earlier than that. As far as the clan's concerned, math's mainly important for sniping and logistics, which you can learn by rote, and somewhat for fuinjutsu, which is handled with apprenticeships."

"...ugh."

"Education is one of the things I want to fix about my world."

"I'm ughing about the part where you're training since you're children to become weapons."

"...Yeah. You might actually be able to ally with my dad on that, he doesn't like it much, either. It's... considered inevitable, or necessary, to be a strong enough clan, and the elders support it, so all my dad could really do was push back the ages. We can be super strong and have only shinobi who've completed their full education and prove them wrong, though, and refuse to deal with anyone who hires children."

"That sounds like a fantastic idea."

"We'll probably have to not be trading with people for a while if we're holding to trade based on morals, and express willingness to forgive the past, but if we establish ourselves well enough it could work. At the very least kids in our nation would have better lives."

"And hopefully become better shinobi for it."

"Definitely. While we might still want to start chakra control training early, having longer to learn should help tremendously, and learning other stuff can't hurt. Teaching more than just clan kids should also make a difference."

"Yeah, sheer variance."

"There's so much wasted potential in my world - very few people can even read, so many die young - we could probably become the most powerful nation just by having minimum standards."

"Do people literally not think of these things there?"