The stone-paved road of the clan grounds was baked hot by the midday sun.
Yuya walked out of his small courtyard, his peripheral vision locked onto the blue numbers of the system countdown—1 hour and 52 minutes.
Turning right ahead would lead to Fugaku’s blacksmith shop, and walking three hundred meters further along the Naka River would bring him to the shrine.
In his memories, Itachi had been wandering around there for the past few days.
It was the final preparation period before the clan’s annihilation, after all.
Even an executioner had to scout the location and check the feng shui beforehand, right?
Passing by a row of residential houses, two Uchiha clansmen with swords were leaning against the base of a wall to cool off.
The older one, with a blade of grass in his mouth, glanced over with a squint.
“Yo, who’s this?
Oh—the one who failed his exams three times.” The younger one immediately chimed in, “Why are you wandering around in the middle of the day instead of staying home?
Going to the shrine to pray to the gods to bless you so you can pass your fourth exam?” The two laughed uproariously, not taking Yuya seriously at all.
Yuya lowered his head and quickened his pace, but his mind was racing with calculations.
Perfect, two witnesses to set the atmosphere are in place.
Since even the outer patrols were so idle, it meant there would only be more onlookers at the shrine.
The more people there were, the more secure the condition of ‘in public’ would be.
This was an absolute win!
Behind the roof tiles in the distance, a blurry figure crouched indistinctly.
Even though they didn’t move, a chilly, gloomy aura drifted over with the wind.
Anbu, and Danzo’s ‘Root’.
The entire Uchiha clan was currently like a giant, fully transparent petri dish; even if a fly buzzed past, its gender would be recorded.
Yuya didn’t even dare to raise his eyelids in that direction.
The original owner of this body was a ‘dead last,’ ranking at the very bottom of the surveillance priority list, but being at the bottom didn’t mean they were blind.
The sound of water mixed with the buzzing of cicadas drew closer and closer.
When the stone lanterns of the shrine emerged from behind the bushes, Yuya’s heart rate suddenly spiked to two hundred beats per minute.
Because that living devil, Itachi, was standing right there.
At the bottom of the stone steps, Itachi was speaking in low tones with a middle-aged clansman in his forties.
The older man was bowing and scraping, as if wishing he could engrave the word ‘respect’ onto his forehead.
It was only natural.
Itachi was the clan’s universally acknowledged cheat-like genius, the Anbu Captain, and the sharpest blade of the Uchiha.
No one knew that three days later, this blade would strike down his own people—the very ones holding the hilt.
Itachi wore a standard Anbu uniform, his long hair tied in a low ponytail.
Looking at him from fifteen meters away, he was like a giant block of ice—cold, expressionless, and completely without weakness.
Yuya cursed up a storm in his mind, but his footsteps didn’t stop.
He had already figured out the logic.
Itachi currently had ‘three prohibitions’: he couldn’t kill before the time was ripe, he couldn’t show killing intent toward his clansmen, and he couldn’t overreact to a piece of trash to avoid raising the suspicion of the spies.
In other words—as long as he didn’t seek death by pulling out a Kunai, Itachi would absolutely find no reason to slice him up in public!
An extremely socially embarrassing public confession, the kind that could make someone cringe so hard they’d dig out a three-bedroom apartment with their toes, perfectly bypassed all of Itachi’s defensive blind spots.
That netizen named ‘Leziren’ on the forum really had a bizarre way of thinking.
This move truly broadened his horizons.
The countdown ticked to 1 hour and 41 minutes.
Near the steps, besides Itachi and the middle-aged man, there were three passing young clansmen.
Counting the two patrolling ones who followed to watch the joke—seven pairs of eyes.
This wave of traffic was guaranteed.
Fifteen meters away from Itachi, Yuya’s right foot twisted, stepping precisely into a gap in the stone pavement, and with a ‘thud,’ he tripped and fell flat on his face.
He propped himself up with his knees.
Such acting skills would be wasted if he didn’t win an Oscar.
The surrounding attention instantly focused on him.
“It’s that trash again…
tripping even while walking, bringing shame to our Uchiha.” Yuya completely ignored them, slowly climbed up, patted off the dust, and walked straight toward Itachi.
Fifteen meters, ten meters, five meters.
The middle-aged man shut his mouth and looked over with a frown.
Itachi also stopped talking, his calm, wave-less black eyes sweeping over the approaching youth.
He didn’t release any killing intent, didn’t refine any Chakra, and didn’t even say a word to scram.
He just stared blankly, like scanning a piece of useless trash intelligence.
Yuya stood still, less than three meters away.
“Itachi…
Itachi-senpai.” His throat was dry, and his voice trembled like Parkinson’s.
The gazes of everyone present instantly gathered on him.
The patrolling ones stopped laughing, the passersby stopped in their tracks, and even the Root Ninja staking out on the roof was stunned and took a couple more looks.
Itachi didn’t say a word.
Neither chasing him away nor responding, maintaining a classic ‘read and ignored’ attitude.
Such silence made the sense of oppression reach its absolute peak.
“Itachi-senpai!” He bellowed at the top of his lungs, his volume loud enough to ensure even the cicadas in the trees could hear clearly.
“I have…
the most important thing in my life that I must tell you in person!” The surroundings instantly fell silent.
Seven pairs of eyes stared in unison at this useless Genin, their minds full of question marks—what kind of secret could a weakling like you possibly have to report to the Anbu Captain?
Yuya gave them absolutely no time to react.
If he stopped, he feared he would truly suffer a social death and want to sink into the ground on the spot.
He didn’t want to taste Tsukuyomi, but right now, his toes were almost digging out a Konoha Village in his shoes.
He suddenly straightened his back, gritted his teeth, took on the posture of a heroic martyr, and roared with clear, resonant words: “I like you!
Ever since the day you graduated from the Ninja Academy, I have been silently watching you!” “Please seriously consider dating me!
I am serious, absolutely not joking!” The last half of the sentence was especially powerful and deafening.
The air froze instantly.
The mouth of the middle-aged man next to them stretched wide enough to fit an ostrich egg, his jaw literally dislocating.
The two patrolling ones didn’t even notice their grass blades falling to the ground, their eyes nearly popping out.
The three young clansmen looked at each other, their faces filled with a giant ‘What the hell, are you out of your mind?!’ On the distant roof, the charcoal pencil in the Root operative’s hand snapped with a sharp ‘crack.’ His intelligence logs crashed for two seconds on the spot.
His CPU was almost fried; he simply couldn’t process this utterly ridiculous piece of information.
A universally acknowledged useless male Genin, in broad daylight and in front of the whole village, confessed his love to…
Anbu Captain Itachi?!
What the hell was this?
A male-on-male version of the Sexy Jutsu?
Or some new type of mental attack?
Even if Senju Tobirama were resurrected, he wouldn’t be able to make sense of the logic behind this move!
At the center of the storm, Itachi remained as steady as an old dog.
He didn’t step back, didn’t frown, and didn’t even show a micro-expression.
He just stood there quietly, sizing up the youth in front of him anew.
Silence lasted for a full five seconds.
During these five seconds, a ‘ding’ finally rang in Yuya’s head.
[Determining task completion…] [Calculating: Publicity Score / Absurdity Score / Target Reaction Score…] [Please wait.] The rewards didn’t arrive instantly.
The progress bar on the system interface crawled like a turtle, inching up notch by notch, even slower than a Pinxixi bargain-sharing cut.
But Yuya had no time to curse the system.
Because Itachi finally spoke.
“Uchiha Yuya.” His full name was precisely called out.
This meant that this living devil Itachi had memorized the file of even a marginal trash like him, who had failed his exams three times, inside out.
The very next sentence caused cold sweat to instantly drench Yuya’s back.
“Who sent you?” The sense of oppression was dialed to the maximum.
There was no mockery, only probing.
This was the instinctive investigation of a top Anbu assassin toward any abnormal variable.
Yuya was secretly overjoyed.
The first strike hadn’t fallen!
Itachi chose to question him instead of taking immediate action, showing that he was indeed unsure of what this tactic was.
As long as they were still talking, there was room to maneuver.
In this life-and-death situation, he had forcefully seized the initiative!