“Mirai!
Can you teach me that kunai-throwing technique from yesterday again?”
“Mirai, Mirai!
Can you spar with me during taijutsu class?
My parents said I should learn from you!”
“Me too!
Me too!
Mirai!”
The moment Mirai and Kushina entered the classroom together the next morning, a group of girls immediately surrounded him.
Standing in the middle of the crowd, the red-haired boy wore a faint smile.
He could still sense that hidden gaze watching him, so he remained alert despite the cheerful atmosphere.
“Sure.
The key to shurikenjutsu is…”
Minato sat in the front row watching the scene, a trace of envy in his blue eyes.
“Amazing…
Mirai has only been here for two days and he’s already this popular.”
A boy with glasses leaned over from the seat beside him.
“You’re not bad either, Minato.
You got full marks in yesterday’s throwing lesson too.”
“It’s different.”
Minato smiled as he looked at Mirai surrounded by girls.
“Mirai isn’t just strong.
There’s something about him that makes people want to gather around him.”
“If I want to become Hokage one day, I think the first thing I need is for everyone to acknowledge me.”
“You want to be Hokage?”
“Yeah.”
Minato nodded seriously, his blond hair shining beneath the morning light.
“I want to become a Hokage who can protect everyone.”
There was a light in his eyes when he said it.
On the other side of the classroom, Kushina sat at her desk with her cheeks puffed out like a pufferfish.
Her red hair shifted faintly behind her, a clear sign that her emotions were stirring.
She stared at the girls chattering around Mirai and unconsciously scratched at the surface of her desk.
“What’s so great about him…
I was the one helping him yesterday…”
She muttered under her breath.
“He didn’t even comb his hair properly this morning.
What do they even see in him?”
Just then, Mirai finally escaped the crowd and returned to his seat beside her.
“Yo, Kushina.
Why are you spacing out?”
“I’m not!”
Kushina snorted and turned her head away.
“…Your cheeks are puffed up like steamed buns.”
“None of your business!”
Mirai thought for a moment, then reached into his bag and placed a piece of candy on her desk.
“Here.
Grandma Mito gave it to me before we left.
Sweet orange flavor.”
Kushina glanced at the candy, then at him.
The corner of her mouth rose before she hurriedly forced it back down.
“…I’m not a little kid.”
“Fine.
Then I’ll eat it.”
“Give it to me!”
Kushina snatched the candy away, unwrapped it, and stuffed it into her mouth.
“You still have some conscience…”
Mirai smiled but said nothing.
Kushina had always been a little tsundere.
He knew that from the beginning.
Fortunately, she was also very easy to appease.
And when this girl grew up, she was going to become a genuine beauty.
Starting early was simply good planning.
Mirai was only thinking about preserving the purity of the Uzumaki bloodline, of course.
Naturally.
His gaze drifted toward a corner of the classroom.
A quiet girl with long black hair sat there reading, as if everything around her had nothing to do with her.
Naori Uchiha.
The aloof girl who had landed three kunai perfectly in the bullseye yesterday looked just as expressionless today.
“Mirai!
Stop looking around.
Class is about to start.” Kushina tugged his sleeve.
“Yeah, yeah.”
That afternoon came practical combat training.
Instructor Toriyama stood on the training ground with the class roster in hand.
“Today’s lesson is one-on-one sparring!
The rules are simple.
No lethal ninjutsu, and stop once the outcome is decided!
Losers aren’t allowed to cry!”
The students burst into laughter.
The restriction on lethal ninjutsu was obviously aimed at Mirai.
Most second-year students hadn’t even begun learning proper ninjutsu yet.
“All right.
When I call your names, step forward.
First match—Kushina Uzumaki versus Midori Yamanaka!”
Kushina immediately perked up and bounced onto the field.
Her opponent was a girl with a blond ponytail who looked visibly nervous.
“Begin!”
Kushina took a breath and remembered the bits of taijutsu Tsunade had occasionally taught her.
Tsunade spent most of her free time gambling, but even a little casual guidance from her was far beyond what ordinary Academy students received.
Kushina rushed forward in one step, slipped past Midori’s punch, and swept her leg out in return.
Thump!
Midori went straight to the ground.
“Winner, Kushina Uzumaki!”
Toriyama blew his whistle.
Kushina turned around and waved at Mirai with a radiant smile.
Mirai raised a thumb.
Several more matches followed.
To be honest, watching little children fight without much technique was so dull that Mirai nearly fell asleep.
The only time he paid close attention was when Minato stepped onto the field.
He wanted to see what the future Fourth Hokage looked like as a child.
Minato came from a civilian family and hadn’t learned any ninjutsu yet.
But in taijutsu alone, he was already more than capable of overwhelming an ordinary student.
He won cleanly, like warm sunlight melting snow.
Even his opponent didn’t look humiliated afterward.
Minato offered the fallen boy a hand.
“You were pretty good too.”
That same warm smile made him look like a little sun.
“Next match—Mirai Uzumaki versus Naori Uchiha!”
The training ground fell silent for half a second before excited chatter erupted.
“Whoa!
Strongest against strongest?”
“You all saw Mirai’s golden chains yesterday, right?
He tied up more than ten people with one move!”
“Naori’s really strong too!
She hit the bullseye three times yesterday!”
“Mirai’s definitely winning!”
“Of course!
He can already use ninjutsu!”
Mirai walked onto the field.
After only two days, he already had a surprising number of little admirers cheering for him.
Across from him, Naori approached slowly.
Her long black hair moved gently in the breeze, and no emotion could be seen on her expressionless face.
But her tightly clenched fists betrayed her.
Yesterday, this red-haired boy had received the same perfect score as she had in the throwing test—and he had thrown all three kunai at once, arranging them perfectly in a vertical line.
She hadn’t liked that.
How could a genius of the Uchiha Clan allow someone else to outshine her?
“Begin!”
The instant Toriyama spoke, Naori moved.
Her taijutsu was extremely polished.
Every movement was clean and efficient, her footwork flexible, and her transitions between offense and defense nearly seamless.
It was obvious she had received strict training at home.
Mirai leaned aside to evade a punch, ducked beneath a sweeping kick, then retreated several steps.
“Whoa!
Mirai’s backing up!” someone exclaimed.
“Naori Uchiha is really strong!”
Mirai wasn’t worried.
At this point, Naori had yet to awaken the Sharingan.
Her taijutsu fundamentals were excellent, but she lacked a decisive finishing move.
Most of her attacks still followed practiced patterns.
Sure enough, after several exchanges failed to break Mirai’s defense, Naori jumped backward to create distance and rapidly formed hand seals.
“Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!”
She inhaled deeply and exhaled.
A huge fireball nearly two meters across erupted from her mouth and roared toward Mirai on a wave of heat.
The entire class erupted in shock.
“That’s…
the Great Fireball Jutsu?!
How old is she?!”
“The Uchiha Clan is ridiculous!”
“I didn’t know Naori could already use ninjutsu too!
Is Mirai going to lose?”
The children didn’t really understand which ninjutsu were strong or weak.
To them, the roaring Great Fireball looked every bit as impressive as Mirai’s Adamantine Sealing Chains.
The fireball rushed closer, its heat making the hair of the students in front curl slightly.
Mirai narrowed his eyes.
A C-rank ninjutsu was genuinely impressive for a seven-year-old.
But against him—
He shifted his body and lightly pushed off the ground, slipping past the very edge of the fireball in one smooth motion.
He even had enough leisure to brush imaginary dust from his shoulder afterward.
“Not bad.
Being able to make a fireball that size at your age is impressive.”
The compliment was sincere.
Naori’s expression nevertheless became colder.
To her, it sounded patronizing.
“You used ninjutsu first.”
A smile tugged at Mirai’s lips.
His sleeve shifted slightly.
A golden chain silently shot out.
“Adamantine Sealing Chains!”
The chain moved incredibly fast and came from a tricky angle, curving toward Naori’s ankle from the side.
By the time she sensed something wrong, it was already too late.
The chain wrapped around her ankle, throwing off her balance and pulling her forward.
At the same moment, a second chain shot from Mirai’s other sleeve and wound around her waist, arms, and shoulders.
By the time Naori understood what had happened, the chains had lifted her about half a meter off the ground in an embarrassingly spread-out posture, with her arms restrained behind her.
The entire training ground went silent.
Naori’s face instantly turned bright red.
The color spread from her ears all the way down her neck, strikingly visible against her black hair.
She gritted her teeth and struggled desperately, but the Adamantine Sealing Chains were famous for suppressing even Tailed Beasts at their peak.
Mirai was nowhere near that level yet, of course.
But Naori was only a seven-year-old girl.
“L-Let me go!”
Her voice trembled with humiliation.
Mirai froze for a moment before realizing that the way he had restrained her looked…
rather unfortunate.
“Uh—sensei, I won.
Please announce the result!”
Toriyama finally snapped out of his daze and hurriedly blew the whistle.
“Winner, Mirai Uzumaki!
Mirai, put her down!”
Mirai immediately withdrew the chains.
Naori dropped back to the ground, stumbled once, then steadied herself.
Her head remained lowered, long black hair hiding her expression.
Her fists tightened until her nails nearly dug into her palms.
“Naori…”
Mirai stepped toward her, intending to say something.
Naori abruptly raised her head.
Her eyes were slightly red, but there were no tears in them—only a fierce flame.
“I’ll defeat you.”
She spoke every word clearly.
“I definitely will.”
Then she turned and walked back to the end of the line.
No one dared speak to her along the way.
Mirai scratched his head while watching her stubborn back.
“…I think I made an enemy.”
Kushina walked over and stared suspiciously at him.
“Why did your chains tie her up like that?”
“That…
that was an accident!
My control isn’t precise enough yet!”
“Really?”
“Really!
Absolutely!”
Kushina snorted, though the corner of her mouth hid a faint smile.
Mirai was still the same Mirai who walked to and from school with her and brought her candy.
That hadn’t changed.
At the edge of the crowd, Minato silently watched everything with something more thoughtful now mixed into his envy.
Being popular alone wasn’t enough to become Hokage.
He also needed strength.
Enough strength that everyone would acknowledge him.
Minato stared at Mirai’s back and quietly clenched his fist.
‘I need to work harder too.’
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