How was the evolution of Genma Shiranui, Maito Guy & Ebisu in their time as Genin until before the events of Naruto 🥷🏻
Sorry if I took a while to reply; It was complicated to organize this.
⚠️ It’s worth noting that all of this is just my own mental juggling act to try to piece together the few canonical facts we know about these three.
My age scale is based on Genma: Gai is two years younger than Genma, Ebisu is one year younger than Genma.
Team Choza
They graduate from the academy and are assigned to the same team under the command of Akimichi Choza. They carry out missions and gain experience. At some point, the Third Shinobi World War breaks out. And everyone participates in one way or another. It's time for the Chunin exams. So here are Genma (13), Ebisu (12), and Gai (10) in the middle of the Forest of Death. This is where the incident occurs in which Gai’s father loses his life. At the end of the day, the only one on the team promoted to Chunin is Genma.
Now we have an orphaned Gai.
A year later, Gai (11) and Ebisu (12) take the Chunin exams again, and this time only Gai passes. Team Choza continues for quite some time until it disbands due to two specific events: first, Choza is about to become a first-time father, and second, Genma (15) has been selected by the Fourth Hokage to be trained as part of the Hokage’s guard. So they celebrate a farewell dinner.
Genma
From this point on, Genma joins the Hokage Guard as a recruit and forms a close bond with Raido. They learn quickly, and both easily earn the rank of jonin. However, this time spent with Minato is short-lived.
After the Fourth Hokage’s death, the Hokage Guard returns to Hiruzen. Genma remains in this position for practically his entire life, making him highly knowledgeable about diplomatic protocols.
Gai
Once Team Choza disbands, Gai continues as a Chunin specializing in taijutsu, trying to master the Eight Gates, and somehow ends up on the Turtle Islands to form a contract with them.
After the Kyubi’s attack (aka, Naruto’s birth), Gai (14) tries to join ANBU but is rejected because he isn’t edgy enough.
Aside from successfully becoming a jonin, I like to think that Gai had other genin teams that he managed to successfully form (at least one more besides the one we already know), since quite a few years pass before he ends up meeting Neji, Lee, and Tenten.
Ebisu
Ebisu (14) is living a personal hell thanks to his father. Things escalate too far, and he has a heated argument that leads him to decide to desert Konoha. Depressed and seeing himself as a disgrace to everyone, Ebisu’s plan was simply to disappear, but fortunately, he is rescued and convinced to return to the village. Ebisu returns, formally severing all ties with his clan and renouncing his surname.
He rebuilds his life and gets by on the pay from his genin missions. At some point, he decides to take some notes to prepare for the exams, but those notes turn into scrolls, and his studies become an obsession with deciphering all the dusty texts in the Konoha library. He finally takes the Chunin Exam (at age 17) solely so he can take on higher-ranked missions.
I like to think that, inspired by Tobirama’s writings, he idealized what would be the perfect execution of a jutsu, like the balance between power and chakra expenditure, or things like that. Well, this guy loves diagrams, and began to perfect his skills in the study of jutsu.
I also find it funny to think that when Hiruzen was considering assigning a personal tutor to Konohamaru, it was Genma who suggested Ebisu, just to help out his buddy because the pay was good.
