“Aoba Yamashiro, Asuma Sarutobi, step forward.”
The taijutsu instructor’s voice echoed across the yard, instantly drawing every eye toward the two boys.
Asuma rolled his wrists with a cocky grin, though caution lingered deep in his eyes.
He had witnessed Aoba’s moves before; the speed of that Body Flicker was genuinely shocking.
However, a shinobi’s strength was hardly defined by a simple E-rank [Body Flicker Technique].
He had already mastered two C-rank ninjutsu, and his private tutors had declared that his skills rivaled a genin’s.
Aoba ambled lazily into the center of the ring.
That nonchalant attitude made Asuma’s expression sour even further.
“Fine.
Great.
I’ll make you pay for that arrogance soon enough!”
Asuma cast a quick glance toward Kurenai, thinking to himself, *Today, I’ll show you what I’m truly made of!*
Little did he know, every single one of his subtle glances had been caught by Aoba.
The corner of Aoba’s mouth twitched.
He felt his fists itch with anticipation.
*Kurenai is barely a kid, and you’re already leering at her?
Looks like she went too easy on you before.
Guess I’ll have to give your childhood a little more character today.*
[Southwest direction, 73 meters, high altitude.
Stable chakra reaction detected.
Technique: “Telescope Technique.”]
The auxiliary chip chimed with updates every few seconds.
*Since the old man wants to watch, I’ll give him something worth seeing.* Aoba chuckled inwardly, his posture gradually tightening as he grew serious.
Standing opposite each other, they formed the Seal of Confrontation as protocol required.
“Begin!”
The instant the call dropped, before Asuma could fully settle into his stance, several wooden shuriken whistled toward him.
“So fast!”
Asuma’s pupils shrank.
He whipped out a practice kunai to deflect them.
By the time he snapped his eyes back forward, Aoba’s silhouette had already blurred.
*Damn it!*
A fierce gust of wind slammed into his face as Asuma threw his arms up in defense.
*Thud!*
A dull impact resounded.
A force far exceeding his imagination battered his forearms, sending him staggering backward out of balance.
“Damn it, not—*hurk!*”
Before he could regain his footing, a sharp agony exploded in his gut.
Asuma bent double like a boiled shrimp, whatever words he meant to shout turning into a choked wheeze.
Ghosting around him, Aoba slipped in from the side, delivering a crisp, ruthless elbow strike dead-center into the soft flesh of Asuma’s ribs.
“Ugh!”
The sheer pain brought tears to Asuma’s eyes.
Gritting his teeth, he scrambled backward to open up distance and slapped his hands together to weave seals.
Aoba’s eyes gleamed with interest.
*He took two solid hits and still hasn’t dropped?
Pretty durable!*
Chakra surged beneath Aoba’s soles.
He bridged the gap in a flash and swatted away Asuma’s left hand before the hand seal could finish.
“Wait, what?
Hold on—”
Aoba gave him no chance to speak.
An uppercut struck Asuma under the chin, biting off the rest of his words.
*Pow!
Thud!
Crack!*
“Ow!
Agh!
Argh!
Yowch—!”
Aoba hammered away with both fists, raining blows without giving Asuma a single breath to talk back.
The training ground fell dead silent, punctuated only by Asuma’s wails of agony.
The spectating classmates stood slack-jawed.
They had imagined plenty of possible outcomes, but a completely one-sided pummeling was never among them.
Watching Asuma’s miserable thrashing, Obito reflexively touched the swelling still lingering on his own face.
*Hiss—*
*He’s terrifying!
Absolutely terrifying!*
Obito swore to himself right then and there never to provoke Aoba on a whim.
Soon, Asuma’s cries warped out of tune.
Judging that the boy had taken enough, Aoba swept his legs out from under him.
Dropping down, he drove a knee firmly into Asuma’s chest and pressed the cold edge of a standard kunai against his throat.
The entire sequence had been as smooth as flowing water, taking less than a minute from start to finish.
The taijutsu instructor’s eyelid twitched violently.
He could tell Aoba hadn’t thrown lethal strikes; Asuma was merely bruised and looked thoroughly beaten, with nothing beyond superficial injuries.
“Oh…”
Gentle-hearted Rin Nohara couldn’t bear to look at Asuma curled on the ground with a battered, swollen face, reflexively shielding her eyes.
Shizune’s mouth hung open so wide it wouldn’t shut.
She never imagined that Aoba, usually so easygoing and polite, possessed such a ruthless side.
“Such…
clean taijutsu.”
What Kakashi saw was completely different from the others.
It wasn’t mindless violence; it was pure, ruthless efficiency.
Every single strike landed squarely on Asuma’s leverage points or the gaps in his defense.
Aoba hadn’t relied on flashy maneuvers.
Every movement was stripped down and practical, anticipating and dismantling his opponent’s counterattacks before they could even begin.
That method of reading an opponent bore a resemblance to how his father had described the Uchiha clan’s Sharingan.
Unfortunately, Kakashi had never seen a true Uchiha fight in earnest—and Obito, standing nearby, was automatically excluded from his mental calculations.
“Match over!
The winner is Aoba Yamashiro!”
The instructor’s voice finally broke the heavy silence.
Looking at Asuma’s swollen face in the dirt, the corner of his mouth twitched again.
Sheathing his kunai, Aoba rose from Asuma’s chest.
As if the cold-blooded brawler from a moment ago had vanished, he slipped right back into his usual lazy posture, gave the teacher a slight bow, and strolled back into the ranks.
The spar concluded with Aoba Yamashiro delivering a total beatdown to the Third Hokage’s son.
Asuma’s bruised face acted like a bucket of ice water dumped over the rest of the class’s hot-headed troublemakers.
The chubby kid and his gang from before broke into a cold sweat, chills running down their spines.
If Aoba dared to lay such heavy hands on the Hokage’s own son—beating him black and blue without batting an eye—who among ordinary students would dare cross him?
Of course, that intimidation only applied to ordinary students.
Kakashi, for instance, had become distinctly intrigued.
Feedback from the chip indicated that Kakashi’s attention metric toward him surged by three hundred percent.
In particular, whenever Aoba trained, Kakashi’s gaze lingered seven to eight seconds longer.
Then there was Might Guy.
Having witnessed Aoba’s taijutsu prowess, he was itching for a duel of youthful passion.
However, Aoba deflected every challenge with excuses like “low on chakra” or “didn’t sleep well last night.”
…
Days drifted past until the weekend arrived once more.
Aoba woke to the chip’s internal alarm.
His first order of business was reviewing his metrics.
“System, pull up physical data.”
[Beep!
Commencing comprehensive scan…]
[Scan complete.]
[Physical indices, blood pressure, heart rate, blood lipids…]
A full breakdown of his physical data projected before his eyes, showing current stats alongside a comparison with the previous day’s.
Aoba focused primarily on the height column.
Height: 147.416 cm → 147.418 cm
An increase of merely 0.002 centimeters in a single day—a record low.
Following the beef, the honey gathered from the Forest of Death had lost its efficacy as well.
He pulled up the system’s analytical report.
[Bone Age: 7.10.
Current developmental peak reached.]
Aoba frowned slightly.
The result was well within his expectations.
Standing at 1.47 meters at seven years old already made him tower over his peers; even eight-year-old Raido Namiashi wasn’t as tall.
Yet for him, that was still far from enough.
The physical body served as the vessel for chakra.
The larger the vessel, the more water it could hold.
“Are there any alternative solutions?”
[Beep!
Generating proposals…]
[Proposal 1: Stimulate the pituitary gland using chakra to force growth hormone secretion.
Risk Assessment: Extremely High!
May result in premature closure of growth plates, severely impairing ultimate growth ceiling, with unpredictable risks of physical mutation.]
[Proposal 2: Locate and consume biological ingredients containing higher density, more specialized chakra energy.]
[Data Analysis: The fundamental reason “Cloud Valley Beef” and “Killer Bee Honey” were effective is that both organisms contained faint yet specialized chakra.]
[Proposal 3: Acquire a chakra Kekkei Genkai…]
…