After summoning the High-ranking Dark Elf, Fuyuki returned to his usual routine. He stopped obsessing over chakra.
With a High-ranking Dark Spirit who excelled at hiding his tracks, even Uchiha Fugaku's Sharingan couldn't keep up with Fuyuki's long legs. So Fuyuki stopped putting his body through the wringer. He couldn't even be bothered to train in the Gentle Fist Technique, let alone the grueling, exhausting Steel Fist Style, which took forever to show results.
Fuyuki already had a plan—a plan to get ninjas hungry for strength to help him gather chakra!
After-school at the Ninja Academy.
Fuyuki rubbed his sleepy eyes, looking as though he'd just woken up. The training methods taught at the Ninja Academy were all basic. For children from ninja clans, they were common knowledge by the age of three, so it didn't really matter whether Fuyuki attended class.
Besides, the Academy didn't just teach training methods; it also offered cultural lessons, such as reading and general knowledge. Female ninjas had one more subject than their male counterparts, aside from poisoning: etiquette.
The female Chunin instructor's reasoning was, "Female ninja assassins don't need brute strength. All a kunoichi needs is clean eyeliner, alluring lipstick, and a pretty outfit to get close to her target. Whether she chops him up or chops his mother up—that's none of our business, is it?"
Among civilians and nobles in the Ninja World, women were seen as the embodiment of gentleness and virtue, not as a threat.
Little did they know that female ninja assassins had an extremely high success rate—higher, in fact, than most male ninjas.
Fuyuki would never forget Naruto's reaction when the female Chunin instructor announced their etiquette lessons to the class the day before.
The instructor's tales of female ninja assassins were so fantastical that Naruto was immediately intrigued. The whole class was stunned when he raised his hand and shouted, "Me, me, me!"
That guy had no shame. And whatever her reasons, the female instructor actually let him take the class!
Just imagining Naruto graduating with flying colors, wearing clean, subtle makeup and a white cherry-blossom kimono, smiling serenely with a sweet, coy voice as he said, "Young Master Fuyuki~"
Fuyuki wanted to die.
"Damn it!"
Fuyuki shook the image from his mind and shuddered involuntarily. "With Naruto's morals, he'd absolutely do it."
Did Naruto even have any morals? What morals could someone who'd use the Crystal Palace Technique in the middle of the street possibly have?!
"No way. Tomorrow, I'm bringing a knife and stabbing Naruto." Fuyuki grumbled to himself as he headed out of the classroom.
He slid open the wooden door and immediately spotted Haruno Sakura standing by the bay window, gazing sadly at the training ground. There was no need to guess—she'd probably struck out with Sasuke again.
Fuyuki glanced at her a few times, then left the first-year classroom without stopping. He had no intention of going over to comfort her.
He really couldn't tell if he was too conservative or if the Ninja World was too open-minded. Kids here knew about romance at six.
"Fuyuki, please wait!"
"Hm?"
Fuyuki paused at the bottom of the stairs and peered back around the corner. "Were you calling me? What is it?"
He'd been at the Ninja Academy for a while, but he usually slept through class and spent breaks looking for his enemies. He hadn't talked much with his classmates. Naruto and Sasuke were the only ones he knew well, since those two rivals kept challenging him to PVP.
"P-please teach me how to flirt with handsome boys, Fuyuki!" Sakura looked torn, but still bowed at a solemn ninety-degree angle. "I won't take up much of your time. Please, Fuyuki!"
"???"
Fuyuki stared at her in confusion. Sakura's move had thrown him for a loop. What did she mean, "Teach me how to flirt with handsome boys"? How could he possibly know how? He was the handsome one—he was good at picking up girls!
He'd been about to say, "N-no, I don't know how to do that either. Ask someone else. I can't teach you that kind of thing!" But then he thought of a fun idea. He swallowed his refusal and walked over to Sakura, who was still bowing. "Why ask me?"
Sakura looked embarrassed and stammered, "I often see you out with older girls. You're with different ones almost every day. I'm not saying you're a playboy or anything, Fuyuki. I'm just a little envious, and I hoped you could give me some pointers..."
Fuyuki raised an eyebrow, realizing which older girls Sakura meant. When he went out, he only took his maids Natsumi, Fei, and Haruko. Sakura must have seen him strolling around the streets of Konoha with them.
"Sakura."
Fuyuki gave her a kindly smile. "You know we're all ninjas, right?"
"Um, yes. But what does that have to do with flirting?"
"In the ninja world, strength is everything. The weak have no right to defy the strong," Fuyuki explained patiently. "Instead, the weak will always look to the strong. They may even come to admire and idolize them. You need to get strong—strong enough that Sasuke-kun can't ignore you, that he has to keep his eyes on you, until he starts admiring you."
"B-but that's impossible! Sasuke's from the powerful Uchiha Clan. How could I ever get stronger than him?" Sakura asked, bewildered.
Fuyuki suddenly put an arm around Sakura's shoulders and pulled her close, giving her a strange smile. "If you can't beat him head-on, why not use what you learned in etiquette class? Poison, assassination, genjutsu—those are all forms of strength too. You don't have to win in a straight-up fight. You can sneak up behind him and knock him out. Once he's unconscious, you can do whatever you want with Sasuke. It's not like he can stop you!"
After delivering his earnest advice, Fuyuki stepped away and patted Sakura on the shoulder. "Good luck!"
Moving close to Sakura and speaking quietly to her had been deliberate. It was a way of hinting that his words were important and sensitive, to make her focus.
A girl lost in unrequited love could work incredibly hard just to make the boy she liked smile.
Fuyuki wanted to see whether he could influence Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura—whether Sakura would take his words to heart, train hard to catch up, and look for a chance to knock Sasuke out, drag him home, or take him to the Shrine and make an offering of him.
"Young Master Fuyuki, you're really quite the troublemaker."
As Fuyuki walked along, a Byakugan woman suddenly appeared beside him. She said with an exasperated look, "If the Clan Head found out you were using such underhanded tactics against the Uchiha Clan Head's second son, he'd be so happy he'd drink himself silly."
A father would surely be relieved to see his own kid being so despicable, shameless, and roguish.
To ninjas, despicable, shameless, and bastard weren't insults. They were compliments!
"I'm picking on Uchiha Sasuke? No, no, don't get the wrong idea. I'm not interested in competing with him. I'm genuinely teaching Sakura how to flirt," Fuyuki said, shrugging. "Most boys can't defend themselves against a girl's moves—like a hook punch, a kidney shot, or a crushing kick. They're impossible for boys to resist."
"Besides, I have high hopes for Sakura's Taijutsu talent. And since girls mature faster than boys, Sasuke shouldn't be able to fend off Sakura's advances."
"In the end, you're still making trouble for Uchiha Sasuke. Seeing you act so roguishly, Young Master, has brought me to tears," Natsumi said dryly.
"You taught me well," Fuyuki replied impassively.
Before you continue