*Splat!!*
An oddly dull impact rang out from the back row of the classroom.
The blackboard eraser caught Obito square in the forehead, fair and clean.
Chalk dust scattered through the air.
The blank look on Obito’s face froze on the spot, leaving a flawless white rectangular imprint dead center on his forehead.
The eraser dropped onto the desk and bounced twice.
The whole class was dumbfounded.
That smooth, unhesitating move of selling out his own teammate shattered everyone’s bottom line for what a person could do.
Was he even human?
Using his own sworn brother as a meat shield?
A full two seconds passed.
“Aaaaaah!!!”
Obito clutched his forehead and let out a shriek a hundred times more piercing than the one when he’d come running over earlier.
He whipped his head around, eyes brimming with tears, staring in utter disbelief at his best friend crouched behind him — completely unharmed.
“Uchiha Yoru! You bastard!!!”
Obito’s mind collapsed on the spot.
Getting hit by the eraser was one thing, but now he’d made a fool of himself in front of Rin!
Worst of all, he hadn’t even had a chance to dodge before being hauled over to take the hit for someone else!
［Emotional Damage Points from Uchiha Obito, +888!］
［Emotional Damage Points from Uchiha Obito, +666!］
［Emotional Damage Points from the Chunin instructor, +666!］
［Emotional Damage Points from the Chunin instructor, +500!］
［Emotional Damage Points from an unknown classmate, +100!］
Safe behind Obito, Yoru listened to the system notifications going off in his head, denser than firecrackers on New Year’s.
That long string of leaping numbers was, quite simply, the most beautiful music in the world.
He glanced at the system panel.
Emotional Damage Points balance: 10,850.
Enough!
The corner of Yoru’s mouth curled into an arrogant smirk.
Coming to this Ninja Academy had been so damn worth it.
On the very first day of school, he’d scraped together the capital for a ten-pull.
The Chunin instructor gasped for breath, purple with rage, and jabbed a finger toward the classroom door.
“You! And Obito! Both of you — get out and stand in the hallway! And you’re not allowed to go home until school lets out!”
Yoru shrugged and stood up without a fuss.
Stand in the hallway?
Exactly what he wanted.
How was he supposed to pull in peace sitting in the classroom?
He grabbed Obito, still wiping his tears, and strutted out the door.
As he passed Kakashi, he didn’t forget to shoot him a smug, punchable little look.
Out in the hallway, the corridor was empty.
The white mark still on his forehead, Obito was so wronged the tears just kept coming as he slumped against the base of the wall, tracing circles on the floor.
Yoru, meanwhile, leaned his back against the wall, closed his eyes, and sank his consciousness straight into the system space.
Looking at the lottery wheel glowing with golden light, Yoru rubbed his hands together in his mind.
“System, cut the crap.”
“Start the ten-pull!”
The moment the command went out, ten thousand Emotional Damage Points were instantly deducted, and the giant wheel in the system space began to spin like mad.
Ten dazzling beams of light came down from the heavens.
Yoru held his breath, eyes glued to the ten pillars of light.
What good stuff would come out?
Whether he could rewrite the Uchiha’s cursed fate rested entirely on this pull!
The hallway was empty, nothing but the gentle breeze drifting in from the window.
Obito crouched at the base of the wall outside the classroom door, listlessly picking at the cracks between the floor tiles.
The square white mark on his forehead still hadn’t been wiped clean, making him look like he had a funeral talisman stuck to his head.
“Yoru, how long do you think we have to stand here…” Obito turned his head, aggrieved.
But Yoru ignored him completely.
Right now he was leaning against the hallway wall, eyes shut, arms crossed, standing perfectly straight.
If you ignored the bizarre grin stretching nearly to his ears, a passerby might have thought he was deep in some profound meditation.
In reality, his entire consciousness was locked onto the system space.
Ten thousand Emotional Damage Points, wiped out in an instant.
Instead of feeling the sting, Yoru rubbed his hands together in his mind.
A ten-pull!
And it even came with a guaranteed drop!
What could burst out at a moment like this?
A Mangekyo Sharingan trial card?
Or the Sage Body bloodline of the Senju clan?
Even if not that, an introductory manual for the Flying Thunder God Technique would do!
Just one of those, and he’d have a rock-solid foothold in this perilous Konoha.
*Boom!*
In the void, ten pillars of light crashed down from the heavens, slamming into the ground of the system space, their glow blinding.
Even Yoru’s breathing stopped.
The first pillar was the first to shudder, fine cracks spreading across its surface before it shattered.
A rune-covered slip of paper drifted quietly down, settling into the first slot of his system inventory.
An explosive tag?
Yoru raised an eyebrow.
It wasn’t a bloodline ability, but explosive tags were solid hard currency in the ninja world, with devastating power.
He immediately opened the item details in his mind.
［Congratulations on obtaining a common item: The Absolutely Non-Explosive Explosive Tag ×1］
Yoru went blank for a second.
He re-read the fine print below.
［An extremely safe, explosion-proof product.
For the safety of the user’s life, this rune has undergone a special process.
Even if you throw it into a fire pit and burn it for three days and three nights, it will only dutifully turn into a pile of ash, absolutely without producing a single spark or sound.］
Yoru’s face went dark on the spot.
Isn’t this just a scrap of paper?!
Whose explosive tag lists “safe and explosion-proof” as its main selling point?!
I’d be better off buying two rolls of toilet paper from the corner store — at least that’d be softer on my ass!
Before Yoru could even start cursing, the remaining pillars of light shattered one after another like a rapid string of firecrackers.
The system notifications started spamming like crazy.
［Congratulations on obtaining a common item: The Guaranteed-to-Miss Kunai ×1］
［Description: Due to an abnormal internal gravity structure, once equipped, no matter how superb your throwing technique or how precise your aim, it will unfailingly dodge the target at a tricky angle, ensuring the opponent is completely unharmed.］
［Congratulations on obtaining a common item: The Pink Concealment Smoke Bomb with Flashing Effects ×1］
［Description: Once thrown, it produces dense pink smoke, accompanied by extremely high-decibel bass-heavy dance music and high-frequency strobe effects.
Use it for stealth, and you’ll be the flashiest kid in the room.］
［Congratulations on obtaining a common item: The Strawberry-Flavored Soldier Pill (Guaranteed Diarrhea Within Ten Seconds) ×1］
［Description: Extremely high nutritional value.
The only side effect is that ten seconds after consumption, the user’s sphincter goes on full strike.］
［Congratulations on obtaining…］
Nine blind boxes cracked open in a row.
His system inventory was crammed with a pile of bizarre items.
Every single one was a brand-new breed of “ninja-world death trap” designed to get its user killed faster.
Staring at row after row of garbage that challenged the very bottom line of human comprehension, Yoru felt his blood pressure shoot straight to the top of his skull.
Out in the hallway.
Obito was peeling paint off the wall out of boredom when he suddenly heard a sharp hiss of breath beside him.
He turned to look — and jolted so hard his whole body shuddered.
Yoru was still leaning against the wall, eyes shut tight.
But the muscles on his face were twitching like mad.
One moment he was gritting his teeth, the next his eyelids were fluttering wildly, his features scrunching into a mess.
In the end he even threw his mouth wide open, contorting into the hideous shape of a silent scream.
Obito swallowed hard, a chill crawling down his spine.
Bracing both hands on the ground, he carefully scooted his butt to the side, forcibly backing away two meters.
*It’s over, it’s over…* Obito muttered frantically in his head.
*Yoru was already acting weird in the classroom, and now his face is cramping up.
Has he lost his mind?*
［Emotional Damage Points from Uchiha Obito, +66!］
The notification that popped up out of nowhere yanked Yoru back from the brink of losing it.
He steadied his breathing at once.
As a veteran unlucky player thoroughly poisoned by every kind of gacha game in his past life, what storm hadn’t he already weathered?
Yoru ran the numbers quickly in his head.
Nine duds in a ten-pull.
So what if these nine were the ultimate trash?
If anything, it proved the system hadn’t secretly rigged the drop rates.
Only truly absurd sacrificial duds could pave the way for a world-shattering ultimate item!
The system was just going through the motions — this was the road every unlucky player had to walk to pull off a comeback!
At the thought, the tension slowly drained from Yoru’s face.
Then the corners of his mouth curled up on their own, revealing the beatific smile of a man who had seen through it all.
Out in the hallway, Obito had just let out a breath of relief when he turned his head and met Yoru’s serene, faintly deranged smile.
Every hair on Obito’s body stood on end.
That smile was somehow even more terrifying than the contorted face from a moment ago!