No one understood the art of throwing shuriken better than the Uchiha.
Sasuke picked up five shuriken, spread his hands outward from the center, and flicked both wrists in one swift motion.
The five shuriken shot through the air like bolts of lightning.
Thunk!
Thunk!
Thunk!
Thunk!
Thunk!
All five struck five separate targets—each one dead center.
“Wow!
Sasuke-kun is so cool!”
“Sasuke-kun, I love you!”
The girls immediately stared at him with heart-shaped eyes.
Standing proudly, Sasuke perfectly embodied the pride of the Uchiha clan.
Naruto, naturally, wasn’t like his counterpart in the original story, desperately seeking attention and growing jealous of anyone who outshone him.
He preferred to keep a low profile.
So he simply followed Iruka’s instructions, throwing each shuriken one by one in a perfectly ordinary manner.
Most of them hit their targets.
More importantly, Naruto had already grasped the key principles behind shuriken throwing.
If he wanted to, his accuracy would improve dramatically in no time.
That was one of the benefits of Constant Concentration.
His learning speed was astonishing.
He absorbed essential techniques almost instantly and could quickly perceive how the surrounding environment affected a thrown weapon, allowing him to make subtle adjustments to his strength and angle.
Although his throws currently only hit the targets without exceptional precision, Naruto had already analyzed all five attempts.
If he wished, his very next round would land every shuriken squarely in the bullseye.
But Naruto was a man who preferred to stay unnoticed.
Even after mastering the technique, he quietly concealed his true ability.
He was nothing like the Naruto from the original story.
________________
Because of this, Iruka still wasn’t particularly close to Naruto.
He simply treated him like any other student.
At times, traces of resentment still surfaced in his eyes.
After all, Naruto was the jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails—the very beast responsible for killing Iruka’s parents.
It was only natural for some of that hatred to spill over onto Naruto.
Iruka wasn’t a saint.
In the original story, Naruto’s loneliness and heartfelt questions had shaken him.
But this Naruto would never expose his own pain to Iruka.
Nor would he cry, demand acknowledgment, or dream of becoming Hokage so everyone would finally recognize him.
His way of expressing injustice was much simpler.
If someone wronged him…
He’d make sure they experienced that same grievance themselves—with a solid slap to the face.
As for talking about becoming Hokage and earning everyone’s recognition…
That was merely something he’d once said to fool the Third Hokage—a small act of revenge against the old man’s years of ideological indoctrination.
If you treat me with cold eyes, then I’ll return the same.
Repay kindness with kindness.
Repay injustice with fairness.
Naruto intended to live by those principles.
________________
“Alright!”
Seeing Naruto perform steadily and land all of his throws on the targets, Iruka simply marked him as Pass on the evaluation sheet.
The following practical lessons—basic taijutsu, survival exercises, sparring, stealth training, and trap setting—went much the same way.
Naruto deliberately displayed only average performance.
The only exception was sparring practice.
Other than Sasuke, Shikamaru, and a few children from prominent ninja clans, almost nobody in Class A was willing to fight Naruto.
Their parents had repeatedly warned them to stay away from the Nine-Tails’ host.
Whenever Iruka paired someone against Naruto, they immediately protested and demanded another opponent.
Even when facing Kiba, Sasuke, and the others, Naruto intentionally held back, allowing himself to lose without difficulty.
Combined with his habit of intentionally bombing written exams—following his self-made rule of “If three answers are long and one is short, pick the short one.
If three are short and one is long, pick the long one.
If they’re all about the same length, choose C.”
…his position as the Academy’s dead-last student became firmly established.
Naruto couldn’t have cared less.
________________
His one-week break had long since ended.
Now all of his focus was devoted to mastering Wind Release: Rasenshuriken.
Having an enormous chakra reserve really was unfair.
It was like operating a research laboratory with unlimited funding.
You could experiment as much as you wanted.
Success became only a matter of time.
As Naruto’s spiritual cultivation through Constant Concentration deepened, both his mental energy and physical vitality grew tremendously.
Naturally, both the quantity and quality of his chakra increased as well.
Even the chakra consumed by practicing the Rasengan alone was far beyond what children his age could withstand.
Not even the current Sasuke could compare.
After all, during the Chūnin Exams, Sasuke could only use Chidori twice before exhausting himself.
Naruto, meanwhile, could train throughout the entire night without stopping.
The Rasenshuriken demanded even more chakra than the Rasengan.
As a result, Naruto was exhausted during the day.
Whether in practical classes or theory lessons, he would immediately fall asleep the moment he sat down.
This only reinforced everyone’s impression that he was the Academy’s hopeless loser.
Naruto didn’t mind.
He needed the daytime to recover his stamina so he could continue training the Rasenshuriken every night.
As expected of an S-rank technique, the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken was extraordinarily difficult.
Even though Naruto had already mastered both the Rasengan and Wind chakra nature transformation, completing the technique remained an immense challenge.
Unlike the Naruto of the future, he couldn’t use the Multi Shadow Clone Technique to multiply his training efficiency.
So all he could do was endure through sheer persistence.
________________
Unlike Naruto’s quiet lifestyle, Sasuke’s popularity continued to skyrocket.
Even though Sasuke himself wasn’t particularly flashy, admiration followed him wherever he went.
Older female students had begun falling for him as well.
Everywhere he walked, he attracted countless admiring glances.
The title of “Genius Uchiha Sasuke” grew more famous by the day.
At this stage of the curriculum, subjects like intelligence analysis, advanced theory, and genjutsu analysis hadn’t begun yet.
Sasuke ranked first in every subject.
Even Sakura—the class’s academic ace—couldn’t surpass him.
Combined with the fact that Sasuke was, quite simply, exceptionally handsome…
His popularity was inevitable.
________________
Then, one day…
The student who had never once missed class failed to appear.
“Iruka-sensei,” Sakura asked worriedly, “Sasuke-kun didn’t come to school today.
Is he sick?”
“Yeah!” the other girls quickly chimed in.
“If Sasuke-kun is sick, we should go visit him!”
Iruka forced a strained smile.
“Sasuke isn’t sick.”
“He’s undergoing special training.”
“After all, he’s the genius of the Uchiha clan.”
“So there’s no need to worry.
Once his special training is finished, he’ll come back.”
The conflict between Konoha and the Uchiha had been deliberately kept out of the Academy.
But Naruto—and heirs of major clans like Shikamaru—already knew the truth.
The Uchiha clan had been wiped out.
However…
Something on that scale couldn’t remain hidden forever.
Before long, rumors spread throughout the Academy.
“Have you heard?
The Uchiha are gone.”
“Gone?
What do you mean ‘gone’?”
“Gone means gone.
Haven’t you noticed?
Have you seen a single Uchiha from the Konoha Police Force lately?”
“Now that you mention it…
I haven’t.”
“My house is near the Uchiha district.
I pass by there all the time.”
“There used to be Uchiha guards standing outside, always looking at people with those arrogant expressions.”
“But lately…
they’re all gone.”
“The gates to the district are standing open…”
“And the streets inside are completely empty.”
“W-What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
“I asked my parents.”
“But they said Lord Hokage issued a gag order.”
“No one’s allowed to talk about it.”
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