"Ugh, another battle with no suspense."
Shikamaru lazily raised his eyelids and shook his head as he looked at Sasuke's serious expression.
He admired Sasuke's persistence, yet also felt helpless at his tenacity.
"Sasuke is a genius born into the Uchiha Clan, but against Naruto..."
Sometimes, the word "genius" really made one's peers feel deeply powerless.
Not Sasuke—the one they were talking about was Naruto.
He still remembered when Naruto had first enrolled. Most of the civilian children in the class had rejected him.
But afterward, Naruto continuously showed off his charm and emotional intelligence, making it impossible for most of the class to harbor any ill will toward him.
Who would dislike a gentle, mature, helpful, nearly perfect peer?
When Naruto revealed his strength during the subsequent practical training, the few who had originally been jealous of him turned that jealousy into admiration and yearning.
"Naruto, did you see that?"
Inside the Sealing Space, Menma-nii smiled as well. "This is the Ostrich Theory I told you about before."
The so-called Ostrich Theory was this: when two chickens were the same size, each chicken would naturally think the other was smaller than itself.
But if one was a turkey and the other a chick, the turkey would feel immensely larger, while the chick would think the two "chickens" were the same size, or assume the turkey simply ate better food than it did.
But if one of them was an ostrich, then the chick would acknowledge that the ostrich was bigger, perhaps even begin to admire it.
Because they simply were not the same species.
"Sometimes, jealousy and admiration are separated by a single thought."
Menma-nii said meaningfully, "As long as you possess an obvious, overwhelming advantage, others will naturally stop slandering and envying you. They may even turn around