“Let’s all eat together!”
Hirofumi Ito wasn’t the least bit stingy.
He placed his own bento right in the center of the group and stepped back.
Then he turned and glanced over at Ino Yamanaka.
“Arigatou! Ino! This bento you prepared looks just as refined as you are — I’m sure it tastes absolutely wonderful too!”
Ino Yamanaka’s heart fluttered the moment those words landed.
What did Hirofumi mean by that?
What does it mean that this bento looks as refined as me…
Could it be that Hirofumi is complimenting my looks?!
Ah!
I’m so incredibly happy!
Just as everyone was about to dig in, Hirofumi suddenly stood up.
The whole group paused, a little puzzled.
Across the way, Sasuke Uchiha noticed that Hirofumi seemed to be walking straight toward him.
“Hey! Sasuke! Want to join us for lunch? Everyone brought great food — eating alone over here is boring!”
Hearing the invitation, Sasuke felt a flicker of excitement inside.
His expression, however, was as aloof and tsundere as ever.
“Hmph… I…”
“Oh, come on! Let’s go!”
Hirofumi already knew that Sasuke’s too-cool-for-everything act had flared up again.
He grabbed Sasuke by the arm, hauled him to his feet, and pushed him right into a seat with the group.
Sasuke felt that flicker of excitement, but his body was stiff with awkwardness, especially with everyone sitting around him, all eyes drifting his way.
“I… I…”
“Oh, what do you mean ‘I’?! Sasuke is definitely about to be full of himself again, just hurry up and eat already! Here! A Naruto secret-recipe mini burger, prepared personally by your great lord Naruto Uzumaki! Sharing one with you!”
Naruto held one of his secret-recipe mini burgers out in front of Sasuke.
Naruto was genuinely happy Sasuke had joined them, even if this stuck-up jerk was always competing with him over Sakura!
But Naruto knew the truth deep down.
Of all his classmates, every single one of them, only Sasuke Uchiha didn’t look at him like he was the Nine-Tails brat.
Sasuke wasn’t his friend.
Sasuke called him an idiot on the regular.
But Sasuke had never once looked at him like he was a monster.
“Hmph! Idiot!”
His mouth said idiot.
His hand took the burger.
“Damn it! Sasuke Uchiha! How dare you call your great lord an idiot?! You stuck-up jerk!”
“Hmph! You’re just an idiot. That’s all there is to it. Idiot Naruto!”
“Stuck-up Sasuke!”
“Idiot Naruto!”
“Stuck-up Sasuke!”
“Idiot Naruto!”
The two of them launched into a full-blown war of words.
Sasuke had the clear upper hand.
Naruto was turning red, composure crumbling fast.
“Damn you, Sasuke! Traitor! Villain! Do you dare duel me?!”
“Heh… Idiot Naruto.”
“AAAAAAH! SASUKE!” Naruto leaped up onto his stool and bellowed with wild, passionate intensity.
And for some reason, the normally cool and collected Sasuke Uchiha, the moment that shout hit his ears, had some kind of switch flip inside him.
He leaped onto his chair.
“NARUTO!”
“SASUKE!”
“NARUTO!”
“SASUKE!”
“NARUTO!”
“SASUKE!”
“…”
Everyone stared.
Completely stunned.
Because in all their years at the Ninja Academy, no one had ever seen Sasuke Uchiha lose it like this.
Not once.
In all that time, Sasuke had never raised his voice in class, not even close.
But today…
why…
had the ever-cool, ever-distant Sasuke Uchiha started screaming names back and forth with the half-witted Naruto Uzumaki like their lives depended on it?!
Damn it!
Was it a genjutsu?!
When did it happen?!
Hirofumi pressed a hand to his forehead and sighed.
Those two were completely hopeless.
Put them in the same room and it was always the same, pure unbridled chaos from start to finish.
“Everyone just ignore those two! Both of them have screws loose, let’s eat our food! Oh, right — the bento my mother packed today has fried chicken in it!”
Naruto was mid-shout of “Sasuke” and stopped dead.
His entire body moved at a speed that defied reason.
One instant, wild-eyed chaos.
The next, seated, composed, both hands on his knees.
“Fried chicken fried chicken fried chicken! AMAZING!”
Seeing that Naruto had zero interest in shouting back at him, Sasuke coolly dropped back into his seat.
He shoved the secret-recipe mini burger into his mouth.
“Bleh! Damn it! What the hell is this?!”
Naruto let out a cold snort.
“Hmph! Ungrateful. This is a Naruto secret-recipe mini burger, made by your great lord using Naruto’s proprietary sauce and over a dozen different ingredients!”
“Damn it! Are you trying to poison someone?!”
“Pfft. You weren’t poisoned, were you?”
“Damn it! Naruto!” Sasuke shouted again.
But this time Sasuke had miscalculated.
Naruto had absolutely no interest in shouting back.
His eyes held nothing but fried chicken.
For some reason, Sasuke couldn’t shake the feeling that just a moment ago, when the two of them had been screaming each other’s names back and forth, his entire mind and body had felt completely, inexplicably exhilarated.
And now Naruto wasn’t engaging with him at all.
What even is fried chicken?!
Is it really that good?!
Fried chicken…
it’s not a complicated concept.
Isn’t it just chicken that’s been fried?
Could it really be that delicious?!
Meanwhile, Naruto had squatted on his stool, big backside sticking up in the air.
He placed one hand flat on the table, fingers shaped into a little stick figure, two fingers for the legs, and walked that tiny figure one slow step at a time toward the fried chicken.
“You’re so beautiful, my chicken… Baby… The sight of you coming toward me stirs something deep inside… One more look, just one more look, and I’ll explode…”
Naruto sang this song every single time he ate fried chicken.
Sang it, and swayed his backside left and right in time with the words.
He had learned the song from Hirofumi, and as far as Naruto was concerned, it was genuinely a great song.
The chicken really is so beautiful!
➤ Next: Don’t Your Eyes Get Dry?
Chapter 24 – Don’t Your Eyes Get Dry?
Everyone had long since gotten used to Naruto Uzumaki’s ridiculous antics.
Nobody even blinked anymore.
Sasuke Uchiha, standing off to the side, did raise an eyebrow, though.
Damn it!
This so-called fried chicken actually had more pull than he did?!
Absolutely unforgivable!
All that passionate energy he put out, and it still couldn’t compete with a piece of fried chicken?!
The little finger-puppet Naruto had fashioned on the tabletop inched closer and closer to the chicken leg, and then a hand swept past in an instant, and the leg vanished into thin air.
Naruto froze solid.
Where’s the chicken leg?!
Where did this great lord’s chicken leg go?!
The bizarre little song he’d been humming died out.
“Just gonna explode… about to melt… melt… where the hell is my chicken leg?!”
He found the culprit in an instant.
Who else could it be but that insufferable Sasuke?!
“You rotten Sasuke! Why did you steal this great lord’s chicken leg?!”
Sasuke was completely nose-in-the-air about it.
He took a vicious bite of the chicken leg, chewed with his mouth half-full, and, mimicking Naruto’s bizarre drawl, said in a muffled voice:
“Idiot Naruto! This chicken really is beautiful! Baby!”
“AAAAAHHHH! Sasuke!”
Sasuke’s eyes lit up.
This idiot Naruto had finally called his name?!
Hahahaha!
And so.
“Naruto!”
“Sasuke!”
“Naruto!”
“Sasuke!”
“…”
Everyone ate through lunch in that utterly bizarre atmosphere.
And why were Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha just sitting there, drilling holes into each other with their eyes?
Had these two brats gotten into a fight?!
What a headache.
“Alright, everyone. This afternoon we’ll be running live combat drills. We’ve done these plenty of times before, so you all know the rules. Let’s head out to Training Ground 3.”
At the training ground, Iruka-sensei stood with the class bracket in hand.
The students were practically bouncing on their heels.
“Kato Taka versus Aoi Sora!”
Two students stepped out of the crowd.
After a scrappy exchange, Aoi Sora squeezed out a narrow win over Kato Taka.
“Second Company Cannon versus Mountain Sage Yamamoto!”
…
Back in the Summoning Space, Madara Uchiha had actually been somewhat curious about the combat drills going on outside.
He lost interest after about two glances.
These brats were simply far too weak.
Hirofumi Ito had no interest in watching children play house either, so he condensed his Chakra and stepped directly into the Summoning Space.
“Madara! Did you see the Ninja Academy kids’ combat drills out there?!”
Madara Uchiha was lounging in his rocking chair without a care in the world.
“Child’s play. You call that combat?! Ninja these days really are something — pathetically weak! Back when this old man was your age, I had a Uchiha war fan in my left hand and a Uchiha scythe in my right! Cut my way from the Uchiha Clan all the way through to the Senju Clan, bodies piling up left and right — do you have any idea?! This old man never even blinked!”
“So your eyes don’t get dry?”
“Damn it! This old man is saying this old man kills without blinking! And you have the nerve to ask whether this old man’s eyes get dry?!”
Hirofumi Ito gave an innocent nod.
“Well yeah, I was just a little curious. The Uchiha Clan and the Senju Clan must have been pretty far apart back then. Cutting and slashing all that way — don’t your eyes actually dry out?”
“Damn it! This old man’s eyes are the Sharingan! Going a full day without blinking is no problem at all!”
“Ah, I see. So the Sharingan actually has that function too? You really do learn something new every day!”
For some reason, Madara Uchiha always found it incredibly easy to lose his composure in front of Hirofumi Ito.
This insufferable little brat was even more aggravating than that blockhead Hashirama Senju.
This old man had been talking about how powerful this old man is, and somehow it became a conversation about whether this old man’s eyes get dry.
After chatting idly with Madara Uchiha for a bit, Hirofumi Ito stepped back out of the Summoning Space.
He still had his own match to fight.
The rounds played out one by one.
As expected, the last two standing were Sasuke Uchiha and Hirofumi Ito.
Nobody in the class found that surprising.
The top two students had always been these two.
Sasuke looked across at Hirofumi Ito, fighting spirit burning in his eyes.
He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but ever since this guy had disappeared from class and then reappeared that one time, something about him felt completely different.
That strange feeling had never come up before.
They formed the Seal of Confrontation.
Sasuke didn’t waste a second, he charged straight at Hirofumi Ito at full speed.
Same as always, he launched himself into the air and came down with a flying kick aimed straight at Hirofumi Ito.
Based on past experience, a move like that should’ve been hard for Hirofumi to block.
But this time, Hirofumi Ito simply extended one arm and stopped the kick cold, no effort at all.
BOOM!
They separated the instant they made contact.
Damn it!
His strength and reaction speed have both improved!
“You really have gotten stronger! Hirofumi Ito!”
Hirofumi Ito was genuinely surprised too.
He knew he’d grown stronger, but he hadn’t expected it to be by this much, blocking Sasuke Uchiha’s move that easily.
In past training sessions, facing Sasuke’s attacks had always been something he struggled to handle.
“Not bad yourself! A lot stronger than before!”
“Hmph! Again!”
“Then bring it!”
Fist for fist, kick for kick, every spectating student, and Iruka-sensei himself, stood there with their mouths hanging open.
Iruka especially had never imagined Hirofumi Ito’s improvement could be this enormous.
“These two must already be close to genin-level. Sasuke Uchiha has always kept pushing forward, but I never expected this kid Hirofumi Ito to advance this fast too. These two are going to become exceptional ninja.”
Meanwhile, there was only one thought running through Hirofumi Ito’s head.
Inexperienced.
Sasuke Uchiha’s combat instincts were still far too raw.
➤ Next: What Would the Eyes of Sasuke and Hinata’s Child Look Like?
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