The law of causality — “must fly off target” — put its most absurd face on display in that very moment.
It dodged the target and went hunting for a living one instead.
Kakashi Hatake didn’t so much as glance down at his leg.
He didn’t even bend his knees.
But the hands jammed in his pockets were clenched tight.
The fabric was pulled taut, the veins on the backs of his hands throbbing.
His knuckles were locked together, his fingertips trembling.
The prodigy Kakashi Hatake absolutely could not be caught taking a stray hit from a dead-last student on the first day of school.
If he cried out, the aloof persona he’d worked so hard to build would be shattered for good.
So all he could do was look up at the sky and endure the excruciating pain radiating from his calf.
The system notifications in Yoru’s mind were still leaping wildly.
［Emotional Damage Points from Kakashi Hatake, +500!］
［Emotional Damage Points from Kakashi Hatake, +444!］
A tall stack of bright red numbers laid bare the inner turmoil of this prodigy — roaring, collapsing behind those dead-fish eyes.
Yoru watched the scene quietly and confirmed one thing beyond doubt.
Kakashi would never guess the kunai had been swapped.
But the system billed it to Yoru’s account anyway.
The Emotional Damage Points were credited in full!
Not a single point short!
A broad, heartfelt smile spread across Yoru’s face, and the heavy stone in his chest finally dropped.
The “anonymous blind test” mechanism was perfectly confirmed!
Which meant that as long as he set the chain of cause and effect in motion, the points would be awarded whether or not the victim knew the truth.
From now on, no need to confront anyone face-to-face.
He just had to find the right moment to dig pits, set traps, and turn others into his pawns.
He could watch people walk into his snares and fall apart from the shadows, comfortably tallying points from behind the scenes.
The sky over Konoha looked a shade brighter in Yoru’s eyes.
He gazed at the stone carvings on the Hokage Rock in the distance and sneered inwardly.
*Wipe out the Uchiha clan?
Then let’s see who ends up wiping out whom.*
The afternoon sun poured over the playground; everything looked peaceful and serene.
Except for the center of the testing area, where a spiky-haired boy with a white mark on his forehead was on his knees, howling at the sky.
“Why did my kunai fly off target? Ahhhhh!!!”
Obito wailed like a madman, unable to comprehend it.
Obito didn’t know the answer.
“Next — Uchiha Yoru!”
The instructor called out.
Yoru touched the six real kunai in his pocket, the ones that had originally belonged to Obito, in an excellent mood.
The Chunin instructor drew a deep breath and forced himself to turn a page in the grade book.
Just now, Obito had flat-out refused to admit he’d missed, insisting at the top of his lungs that the wind had been too strong and blown his kunai off course.
That excuse — one not even a ghost would believe — had nearly given the instructor a heart attack.
He looked at the two holes punched behind Obito’s name and forced down the internal injury.
He rubbed his temples hard, trying to calm his raging blood pressure.
*It’s fine.*
*There’s still one more Uchiha.*
“Next — Uchiha Yoru!”
The instructor shouted.
As he called the name, he lifted his head, his gaze crossing the chaotic crowd of new students on the playground.
A flicker of complicated hope still lingered in his eyes.
Sure, the kid’s mental state today had been spectacularly “vivid,” every single thing he did more absurd than the last.
But bloodline was, in the end, bloodline.
Even if he acted like a patient who’d escaped from a psychiatric ward in the classroom — once he picked up a kunai and stood on the throwing line, the talent he’d inherited at birth wouldn’t lie.
In years past, which Uchiha freshman hadn’t opened with a bang in the throwing test?
Obito really had failed, yes — but Uchiha Yoru was this year’s famous Uchiha prodigy.
If he could pull off a textbook throw, the class average might still be salvaged.
The chatter across the playground went quiet in an instant.
Countless gazes swung toward the back row as one.
Yoru sauntered out of the crowd.
He reached into his pocket and touched the six real kunai.
He casually drew out three, leaving the other three where they were.
Might Guy, standing to the side, watched Yoru’s lazy manner and shot his thick eyebrows up.
“Uchiha Yoru! A ninja’s tools are the partners to whom he entrusts his very life! That frivolous attitude of yours is a blasphemy against youth!”
Yoru stopped, didn’t even bother lifting his eyelids, and slid Might Guy a glance.
“When you’re in the restroom and the zipper on your green bodysuit jams — do you call that an obstacle to youth too?”
Might Guy froze for a moment, picturing the desperate scene of being unable to get his clothes off and dying of holding it in, and his face went green.
［Emotional Damage Points from Might Guy, +222!］
Satisfied, Yoru reeled his gaze back in and ambled onto the throwing line.
He didn’t tense into a proper stance like the other freshmen, nor strike any classic starting pose like Obito.
The motion was casual, borderline obnoxious.
But no one on the playground laughed.
Several girls in the front row rose onto their toes without realizing it, and even Rin Nohara tilted her head, watching.
The Chunin instructor stared fixedly at the kunai in Yoru’s hand.
The metal flashed in the sunlight, the rhythm of the toss and catch perfectly steady.
A pro can tell whether someone’s got the skills the moment they make a move.
Just from that idle tossing and catching, you could see the kid had an uncannily precise read on the kunai’s center of gravity.
The instructor’s breathing turned heavy.
*Come on — win a little glory for your teacher!*
But Yoru stood behind the white line without even looking at the target twenty-five meters out.
His gaze cut across the crowd and locked hard onto Kakashi Hatake at the far right.
Right now Kakashi was living through the most agonizing three minutes of his life, Obito’s kunai still lodged in his left calf.
It hurt — but to keep the “number one prodigy” aura from cracking, he’d waited for everyone’s eyes to be on Yoru and then bent down with extreme stealth.
His fingers secretly closed around the grip on the outside of his left leg.
His dead-fish eyes narrowed as he worked out how to yank the kunai out and stop the bleeding fast.
Two girls peeking from the side looked puzzled.
*Is…
is Kakashi tying his shoelaces?*
Watching Kakashi’s furtive, awkward little “dying-for-face, suffering-for-it” routine, Yoru smiled.
Just now, Obito’s fluke shot had managed to trigger a double 999 — and what he’d been holding was a genuine, standard kunai.
*Good things come in pairs, get it?*
Yoru suddenly straightened up, skipping the warm-up entirely.
He raised his right hand and snapped his wrist, twice.
*Swish!
Swish!*
The first and second kunai left his hand one after the other with a cold, sharp whistle.
The technique was fast and merciless, and the whole crowd’s eyes instantly chased the afterimages streaking out.
But a heartbeat later, everyone’s pupils shrank at the same time.
From the very first millisecond they left his hand, those two kunai were off by a mile.
They weren’t heading for Yoru’s assigned target No.
3 at all.
*Thunk!*
The first kunai pierced dead center into the bullseye of the new target Asuma Sarutobi had just switched to.
Asuma was crouched nearby, pulling out Obito’s kunai, when the dull thunk exploded right beside his ear and wood splinters sprayed across his face.
His scalp went numb, and he dimly felt a warmth spreading at his crotch.
He scrambled back three meters and — *plop* — sat down flat on the ground, his face bloodless.