This year held particular importance for Ron, as he was approaching his eighth birthday. In comparison, Hatake Kakashi was about to turn six years old, and this was precisely the year he graduated from the Ninja Academy, earning the title of Genin at the remarkably young age of five. Meanwhile, Namikaze Minato was already sixteen years old, steadily building his reputation as one of Konoha's brightest talents.
Within Konoha, the timeline was progressing rapidly. Kakashi had just graduated and, though still not quite six, he was already preparing to enter the Chunin Exams in a few months. His genius was unmatched, and he was expected to become a Chunin before even reaching his sixth birthday. Two years from now, when Kakashi turned eight, tragedy would strike the suicide of his father, Hatake Sakumo, an event that would leave an indelible scar on him and shape much of his cold demeanor in the years to come.
Only a year later, when Rin Nohara was nine, the Third Ninja World War would erupt, intensifying the lingering conflicts that had simmered since the Second Ninja War. This would mark the beginning of one of the darkest eras for the younger generation of Konoha.
At the age of nine, Kakashi, Obito, and Rin would be placed under the tutelage of the then nineteen-year-old Namikaze Minato, forming the team that history would remember for both its brilliance and its tragedies. Two years after their formation, Obito and Rin would attain the rank of Chunin at the age of eleven. Kakashi, driven by unmatched talent and burdened by his ninja way due to Sakumo's suicide, would surpass them and become a Jonin at the age of twelve, when Minato was twenty-two.
Not long after, disaster would strike during the Kannabi Bridge mission. Manipulated by Madara from the shadows, Obito's presumed death and Rin's eventual tragic fate would ignite the darkness within him, setting the stage for the birth of one of the greatest threats the shinobi world had ever faced. These events would coincide with the conclusion of the Third Ninja World War, a conflict that would see Minato rise as Hokage at the age of twenty-three only to meet his death a year later at twenty-four, leaving behind a legacy that outshone his brief life, by cheating and being Asura's reincarantion and 9-tails Jinchurikki, of cours eby endurnig pain that was not deserved of a hero and one of a hero's descendent.
Ron understood that the coming years would be crowded with pivotal events, each one pushing the shinobi world toward greater turmoil. Yet for now, there was still a small buffer of time around three years before Sasori's assassination of the Third Kazekage triggered the war in earnest. More importantly, Ron did not believe that the future would unfold exactly as recorded. Too many variables had already shifted, and the path ahead was no longer certain.