A few days later, in the backyard of Houka's home.
"Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, Hai!"
Houka recited the sequence one character at a time as he formed the Hand Seals. Though he stumbled a little, he could finally complete all twelve hand signs smoothly.
At night, Houka practiced tree climbing and Water Walking. After spending several days getting soaked, he could finally stand steadily on the water's surface. The Chakra beneath his feet felt like a part of his body. He could sense the water's softness and the buoyant force beneath him. He walked and ran across the surface, gradually learning its rhythms. Eventually, the practice became instinctive: as soon as he touched water, Chakra would automatically wrap around his feet. He wouldn't have to worry about falling in again.
After all these days of intense practice, Houka had also discovered that his body really did have a "cheat"—no matter how furiously he trained the day before, he woke up the next morning fully recovered. Unfortunately, it did nothing for his injuries.
Whoosh!
He had mastered Chakra control, and he could form the Hand Seals now, too. Houka's eyes lit up as his hands swiftly formed the signs.
"Transformation Technique!"
Poof!
A cloud of smoke flashed by, and a little boy wearing goggles appeared in its place. It was Uchiha Obito—or rather, Houka, transformed into Uchiha Obito.
Houka pulled out a mirror and examined himself. He looked exactly like Obito, right down to the subtle expression in his eyes. He was satisfied.
"Release!"
Houka then practiced the Clone Technique and the Substitution Technique. He succeeded with both on his first try.
"I may have an adult's mind, but the Three Body Technique is far too easy for me."
Houka's eyes gleamed. At last, he couldn't resist any longer. He took out the Fire Release scroll and began practicing the Fire Release Ninjutsu inside!
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
Si—Wei—Shen—Hai—Wu—Yin!
Houka formed the Hand Seals quickly. Chakra surged inside him, swiftly turning into a searing force that gathered in his throat.
Houka's eyes widened. For an instant, he felt as if his throat held a ball of fire. The intense heat scorched him relentlessly, and he couldn't hold on—he broke the Hand Seals.
In an instant, the heat in his throat vanished.
"Huff, huff..."
Houka panted, shaken. For a moment there, he'd thought he was going to burn to death.
"One, two, three..." Houka gently touched his throat and spoke softly. "Good. My vocal cords are unharmed."
"The Great Fireball Technique really is a Fire Release Ninjutsu of the Uchiha Clan."
Houka remembered that in the original story, Uchiha Sasuke often practiced this technique by a lake. Even the protagonist had to put in that much effort, which showed just how difficult it was to master.
Houka relaxed and continued practicing.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
"Ugh!!!"
A rush of air suddenly surged up Houka's throat, as if his stomach was churning. He hurriedly stopped forming the Hand Seals and began retching.
"Damn it, could these Hand Seals for the technique be wrong?"
After failing several times in a row, Houka couldn't help feeling a little discouraged.
"No, this is just the Great Fireball Technique. If I can't even learn this, how am I supposed to learn more advanced techniques later?"
"Keep going!"
Houka calmed himself and kept practicing the Great Fireball Technique. Gradually, the sky grew darker and darker. A mass of clouds covered the moon, blotting out everything around him.
Whoosh!
Suddenly, a spark of fire slipped out of Houka's mouth, but it went out in an instant, like an illusion.
"Did I do it?"
Somehow, Houka felt he'd caught hold of something. But when he tried to build on it, he realized that his Chakra had already run out!
"Still not enough..."
Houka shook his head with a sigh. Before long, he couldn't keep going. He went back inside and fell straight into bed.
Perhaps because he'd spent so long practicing Fire Release Ninjutsu before bed, Houka kept practicing even after he fell asleep and began to dream. Time passed unnoticed in the dream. Just as Houka was losing himself in the joy of training, a Shuriken suddenly shot toward him from far away, embedding itself right where his heart was.
Houka stared up in disbelief. In the distance, a man wearing a spiral mask, with only one bloodshot Three-Tomoe Sharingan visible, was watching him impassively.
"Uchiha... Obito? How could this be?"
In a daze, Houka jolted awake and realized it had all been a dream. But his back was already soaked through.
"Huff, huff!"
It wasn't dawn yet. Everything around him was silent, save for the faint chirping of a few bugs in the courtyard.
Houka was wide awake now. He got dressed and went out into the courtyard.
Uchiha Obito's home was right next door.
"Seriously, the future supervillain boss lives next door. I can't help feeling a little pressured."
Right now, Obito was a good person. No matter what Houka did to him, Obito would choose to forgive him. But how long would that friendship last?
After what happened to Rin, Uchiha Obito had even been willing to attack his own teacher's wife, Kushina. And Houka was his childhood friend...
That didn't make Houka feel safe at all.
"Wait, no, that's not right. Obito hasn't even awakened his Sharingan yet, but I've already awakened mine!"
Houka focused his attention on his eyes. In an instant, a force of ocular power stirred within them, and his clear black-and-white eyes took on a bloodthirsty, ominous glint.
One-Tomoe Sharingan!
Beneath the dim moonlight, the Tomoe in Houka's eyes slowly rotated. Everything around him came into sharp focus. More than ten meters away, a bug in the grass opened its mouth to chirp. Houka could even see the bits of leaves inside it.
A breeze swept past, carrying a few scattered leaves. Houka reached out almost unconsciously. By the time he realized what he'd done, the leaves were all resting in his palm.
"That's amazing!"
Houka swallowed. He felt incredibly powerful. A sense that he was invincible welled up from the depths of his heart, and the ocular power of the Sharingan seemed to urge him: destroy, ruin, conquer!
Houka took a deep breath, forcing down the stirring in his heart, and slowly deactivated the Sharingan.
"As expected, it's ominous. Without enough willpower, I'd probably be conquered by these eyes."
"Since Heaven has given me a chance to start over, and a pair of Sharingan, I'll control them with my own will and stand at the pinnacle of this world!"
Willpower?
In the original story, the Third Hokage was always talking about the Will of Fire. Put simply, it meant protecting others.
Protecting the village, protecting family, protecting friends, protecting the next generation.
This desire to protect wouldn't greatly increase a person's strength, but it would strengthen their resolve. In battle, they would be braver and more fearless, even willing to lay down their lives!
But Houka had only just arrived in this world and this village. He knew fewer than five people. How could he embrace such an ideal?
"In my previous life, Gorky once said, 'Even a little self-restraint can make a person stronger and more resolute.'"
"Maybe I can strengthen my own willpower while I train!"
"Wait, why does that sound so familiar?"
Then two men in dark green, skintight combat suits sprang into Houka's mind. They had eyebrows as thick as thumbs and beamed like blooming chrysanthemums. Both held up a thumbs-up, their single gleaming white teeth shining at the corners of their mouths.
Houka's eye twitched.
In the original story, Might Guy and Rock Lee trained like this: "If I can't jump rope a hundred times, I'll do two hundred side kicks. If I can't do two hundred side kicks, I'll run two laps around Konoha." Through training like that, they had not only gained tremendous strength but also forged wills as firm as steel. They never wavered or lost their way!
"Damn it, am I going to turn into one of them?"
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