At that moment, Hirofumi Ito had already stepped into the Summoning Space.
Madara Uchiha was sprawled in a rocking chair, gnawing on a pig’s trotter with complete and utter leisure.
Life inside the Summoning Space was relaxed enough, sure, but for Madara Uchiha, it was genuinely boring.
There wasn’t a single other living soul in there, and besides gnawing on pig’s trotters, there was nothing else he could do.
“You wretched little brat — you’re back again?!”
He kept gnawing as he shot Hirofumi Ito a sideways glance.
That single glance made him freeze.
“How has this brat’s Chakra jumped up so much? It’s only been one day and it’s already shot up by a massive margin! Going purely by Chakra, this wretched little brat is now fully on par with a qualified Genin, isn’t he?! Don’t tell me this brat is actually a genius?!”
“Huh? Madara, you worked through all those pig’s trotters by yourself?! You can really put it away, can’t you? That was a whole kitchen’s worth! And another thing — what was that blank scroll you had me fetch for you earlier?”
Hearing the question, Madara Uchiha’s old face went red.
Of course he hadn’t finished all those pig’s trotters on his own, he’d turned that blank scroll into a Scroll of Seals specifically for storing them.
But he certainly wasn’t going to tell this wretched little brat that.
If he did, the brat would absolutely start going on again about how he was some great figure of the Shinobi World.
“None of your damn business! What did you actually come looking for this old man for, brat? If it’s nothing important, stop disturbing my rest!”
“This is my turf — are you saying I can’t even come here?!”
As he said it, Hirofumi Ito went ahead and sprawled out in a rocking chair himself.
Madara Uchiha clicked his tongue once and said nothing more.
“Madara… I should count as your half-disciple by now, right?”
“What are you trying to say, brat?”
Madara Uchiha didn’t refute it.
In his view, the fact that this little brat shared the same way of thinking as himself was something genuinely rare.
And on top of that, the brat gave him a very particular feeling he couldn’t quite name.
The talent seemed decent too, he had to admit.
He had only said half-disciple, not a true disciple, and he had indeed been guiding him.
Nothing wrong with that.
Seeing that Madara hadn’t refuted him, the corner of Hirofumi Ito’s mouth curved up slightly.
“Our class is organizing a ninja combat training exercise this afternoon.”
“What does that have to do with this old man?” Madara said, completely indifferent, still rocking back and forth.
SMACK!
Hirofumi Ito slapped the armrest hard and raised his voice.
“It has everything to do with you!”
He fixed a burning gaze on Madara Uchiha.
“Think about it, Madara!
You’ve already acknowledged that I’m your half-disciple, which means I represent your face.
Your reputation!
The face of Madara Uchiha himself!
So tell me: if I lose the upcoming combat matches, or get completely thrashed, whose face takes the hit?
Not mine, definitely not mine!
That’s YOUR face on the line, old man!
The disciple of the great Madara Uchiha, beaten by a bunch of little runts!
Can you seriously stand for that?!
I know I can’t!
And if I get my backside kicked during training, that’s going to be even more humiliating!
Because it’s not really my backside getting kicked, is it?!
That’s a slap straight to YOUR face!
Isn’t that exactly how it works?!”
Madara Uchiha’s brain struggled to bend around that logic for a moment.
He had a nagging feeling that this wretched little brat’s argument sounded almost reasonable, yet something about it was also slightly off.
What does getting him kicked in the backside have to do with slapping my face?!
That would make my face the same as his backside, wouldn’t it?!
“Brat, what exactly do you mean, kicking your backside equals slapping this old man’s face?!?”
“Don’t get hung up on the details, Madara. The point is: if I lose, that means you lose face, doesn’t it?!”
“Hmm… I suppose you do have something of a point there…”
“So then! Teach me a few moves!”
Madara Uchiha finally caught up.
This wretched little brat had been talking in circles this entire time just to get this old man to teach him how to train, hadn’t he?!
Took the longest possible route just to reach his actual point.
Still, Madara Uchiha had to admit Hirofumi Ito wasn’t wrong.
If the brat under his guidance couldn’t beat a bunch of Ninja Academy students, that really would be embarrassing.
And knowing Hashirama Senju, that blockhead would absolutely use it as an excuse to mock him every single day without fail.
Besides, the brat’s talent did seem solid. Get faster updates on novelping.com.
His Chakra had surged by a massive margin in just one day.
There was something worth shaping here.
“Hmph… Fine. Since you’ve put it that way, this old man will teach you a few things today. Your Chakra is already more than adequate, so today I’ll teach you some ninjutsu!”
Hirofumi Ito blinked.
He genuinely hadn’t expected Madara to just go ahead and start teaching him ninjutsu right here and now.
What a pleasant surprise!
His own clan wasn’t short on ordinary ninjutsu, of course, but both his father and grandfather had forbidden him from training in any of it.
He hadn’t even graduated from the Ninja Academy yet, and learning ninjutsu at this stage was considered genuinely dangerous.
But then Hirofumi Ito hesitated.
“I do want to train in ninjutsu, but I don’t even know what nature type my Chakra is. Should I go get it tested first?”
Madara Uchiha clicked his tongue.
“Tch. What a pointless little trick. This old man sensed your Chakra nature long ago, you have all five types innately. I’ll admit, your luck really isn’t bad, brat. Otherwise you’d have had to grind out nature transformation from scratch.”
He felt a small twinge of sourness as he said it.
This wretched little brat’s talent really was something else.
He himself hadn’t been born with all five Chakra nature types.
Training in other natures had required cultivating the transformations afterward, which technically worked, but it was twice the effort for half the result.
This brat’s starting point was already a full step above everyone else’s.
“That’s what I expect from you, Madara! You can even sense something like that?!”
Hirofumi Ito knew full well that testing Chakra affinity normally required special Chakra paper.
But clearly, if your power was sufficient enough, reading another person’s Chakra nature was trivially easy.
“Hmph, brat! Stop wasting time! Let’s start today’s training!”
BANG!
Madara Uchiha, who had been lying in his rocking chair just a moment before, vanished.
He reappeared beside Hirofumi Ito in an instant, launched a kick, and sent Hirofumi Ito flying through the air, chair and all.
➤ Next: Naruto’s Secret-Recipe Burger
Chapter 22 – Naruto’s Secret-Recipe Burger
Around noon, Hirofumi finally lifted his head from the desk, blinking his eyes open and rolling the soreness out of his joints.
“That damn Madara Uchiha! He really didn’t hold back!”
“Still… I actually did get stronger.”
He turned that thought over in his mind.
A day and a half, and the difference was impossible to ignore.
Reaction speed, physical conditioning, total Chakra volume.
Every single metric had jumped.
This wasn’t wishful thinking.
He had genuinely gotten stronger.
And picking up ninjutsu hadn’t been nearly as hard as he’d expected.
Half a day inside the Summoning Space, and he’d already learned the C-rank Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique.
Not barely learned it, either.
He could release it with full proficiency.
With his current Chakra reserves, he could fire it off three clean times.
The ordinary version, obviously.
Not Madara Uchiha’s unhinged version.
When Madara had been teaching him, he’d demonstrated his own ninjutsu power as a reference point.
Hirofumi had known from the original series how absurd Madara’s abilities were, but knowing and seeing were completely different things.
Hirofumi’s Great Fireball Technique was a fireball.
Madara Uchiha’s Great Fireball Technique was a miniature sun.
Madara had actually seemed surprised that Hirofumi picked it up so fast.
Which made sense, Hirofumi had no Sharingan.
He couldn’t just copy a technique by watching it.
Reaching full proficiency with a C-rank jutsu in half a day, with no visual copying ability?
That was genuine talent.
Hirofumi didn’t see it that way, though.
He figured the rapid improvement came down to one thing: Indra’s Chakra.
Every time he summoned a spirit, he could pull one ability from them and load it directly onto himself.
Copy-paste, basically.
And Indra’s Chakra was exactly what he’d extracted from Madara Uchiha.
That was why he’d been leveling up so fast.
He let out a helpless, wry smile at the thought. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Naruto.
Honestly, they should just rename it “Cheat Code Ninja.” Or maybe “Tailed Beast Pocket Monsters.” Or “Eye Legend”, that one fit pretty well too.
“Hirofumi! How did you sleep in this late?! Your great lord and master has been up for ages, and you’re still knocked out!”
Naruto Uzumaki’s voice cut through the room toward him.
Hirofumi looked around.
Everyone on the other side of the classroom had already pulled out their lunch boxes and snacks and were settling in to eat.
A few years at the Ninja Academy had a way of doing that.
Because of Hirofumi’s influence, the members of the Konoha 11 had grown far closer to one another than they ever had in the original story, close enough that they’d quietly formed their own little crew inside the school.
And Naruto had made his way in.
The group had started small.
Just Hirofumi and Naruto.
Then Ino Yamanaka joined, harboring a crush on Hirofumi.
Then Shikamaru Nara and Choji Akimichi.
Then Kiba Inuzuka and Shino Aburame.
Hinata Hyūga had been hovering near the edges for a while — probably because of a certain crush on Naruto Uzumaki, and had now fully crossed over.
Sakura Haruno rounded out the group by way of being Ino Yamanaka’s best friend.
Apart from Sasuke Uchiha, the original nine members of the Konoha 11 had all drifted together ahead of schedule.
Sasuke sat alone by the window, pulling out a lunch box he’d prepared himself.
But his gaze kept sliding sideways toward the group.
Just for a moment, something flickered in his eyes, a faint trace of envy, before he looked away.
Naruto grabbed Hirofumi by the arm and dragged him over to the table where everyone was clustered.
“Secret-recipe burger! Naruto’s secret-recipe burger! Secret-recipe burger! Naruto’s secret-recipe burger! Got up a little early today, nothing else to do, so I made a burger — wanna know if the burger’s good, gotta pick your toppings right…”
Naruto was half-singing, half-chanting it, some kind of melody attached to the words, while pulling a suspicious burger-shaped object out of his backpack.
Nobody batted an eye.
By now, scenes like this were just Tuesday.
Over the years at the Ninja Academy, they’d all absorbed a strange assortment of habits and phrases from Hirofumi, things that had seemed completely bizarre at first and now just felt normal.
Hinata Hyūga sat beside Naruto, watching with quiet, careful attention.
“Naruto’s song really is nice… he must really love burgers. I should learn how to make them properly sometime…”
Naruto, meanwhile, had no idea Hinata was watching at all.
His eyes had already swung across the table to Sakura Haruno, full puppy-dog energy on display.
“Sakura! I made this Naruto secret-recipe burger this morning — come on, try it!”
Sakura looked at the unidentified burger-shaped object in front of her and had the very distinct impression that Naruto Uzumaki was trying to poison her.
BAM!
A fist came down hard on top of Naruto’s head.
“Who would eat something that looks like that?!”
The corners of everyone’s mouths curved up.
Choji Akimichi immediately upended an entire backpack’s worth of snacks onto the table with a dramatic clatter.
“Let’s go! Down the hatch, everyone!”
Ino Yamanaka had already taken out her own lunch box, and then produced a second one, this one noticeably more carefully put together.
“Hirofumi… I made this one. Try it and tell me if it’s good…”
Hirofumi raised an eyebrow.
The box was genuinely impressive, rows of delicate little rice balls arranged with obvious care, small snacks tucked in as decoration around the edges.
Ino Yamanaka had put real effort into this.
He set it aside and reached into his own desk, pulling out an enormous lunch box.
The energy around the table shifted immediately.
Every pair of eyes locked onto it.
There was a reason for that.
Hirofumi’s mother’s cooking was on another level entirely, and it was always something none of them had ever tasted before.
Hirofumi knew exactly what they were all hoping for.
The food his mother packed for him came straight from his memories of his previous life, dishes that had no equivalent in this world.
In the culinary wasteland that was the Naruto universe, that kind of food had a pull that needed no explanation.
➤ Next: You’re So Beautiful, My Chicken Baby
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