All I Wanted Was to Cripple You

Although Arata had activated his Sharingan, he had not used any ocular techniques.

He had no interest in torturing or intimidating trash like this guy, whom he could suppress with one hand.

Mentioning Itachi had been the main reason he acted.

As for activating the Sharingan, it was because he had sensed someone following and watching him.

That prickling sensation had appeared the moment he left the clan grounds and persisted until now. The other party was exceptionally skilled at concealment and thoroughly familiar with the village's terrain!

While passing street corners and changing direction, Arata had discreetly looked back several times, but found nothing. Everything in sight was blocked by other objects.

Now, he wanted to use this chaos to make that person lower his guard and reveal himself.

"Let go! Let go of Kazama!"

Seeing their companion's face turn red from struggling to breathe, someone finally snapped out of his fear.

Kazama was clearly older and had completed more than a dozen missions, possessing a certain amount of combat experience. Yet he had still been subdued in an instant!

What kind of terrifying strength was that?

But Arata remained unmoved. He knew his limits, and his taut nerves shut out the surrounding clamor entirely as he focused only on finding the watcher hiding nearby.

"Found you."

Arata's peripheral vision abruptly stopped on a thick wooden post wrapped in vine rope. It was normally used for the most basic close-combat training.

But it looked as though hardly anyone used it.

Young ninja preferred training with shuriken or ninjutsu.

That concealed gaze was coming from there. Though there was nothing extra in his field of vision, Arata was certain of it.

After all, his movement techniques and concealment skills were no weaker.

"I said, let go!"

Without warning, a sharp flash of steel slashed toward Arata's arm.

Anyone who could become a ninja, even at merely a dozen years old, possessed a mind beyond that of ordinary people.

Arata withdrew his gaze. Now that he had locked onto the watcher's position, there was nothing else to worry about.

As for that approaching kunai...

With such a stiff grip, could it be useful?

Rather than retreating, the boy advanced. Dragging along prey slightly taller than himself, he crashed into the attacker's chest before the kunai could fall.

"Urgh."

The violent impact instantly made the other party cough up blood. His kunai clattered to the ground, and he rolled into a corner.

As for Kazama Hajime, who had been used as a shield, he had already passed out.

After all, genin missions basically never involved fighting ninja. Just now, he had truly felt Arata's killing intent.

For Yu Zhi, naturally, that was the best way to escape reality. Though whether he could escape the terrifying wet stain on his pants after waking up was another matter.

That Single-Tomoe would remain forever etched into his memories, impossible to erase.

"Hayata!"

"Brothers, Arata Uchiha can't beat Itachi from his own clan, so he came here to bully people and make himself feel better! Get him together!"

The furious roar instantly set half the training grounds ablaze.

This area was a training ground for genin and students. They were relatively young, and most were hot-blooded.

More importantly, Arata's infamous reputation had already spread. Among ninja, he was discussed even more than the Demon Fox, Naruto Uzumaki.

There was no guilt or pressure in ganging up on someone who did not value clan bonds.

Especially when that someone was an arrogant Uchiha!

They had wanted to beat up this clan for a long time!

Of course, some even younger children watched those thoughtless genin with looks of utter disdain.

"Are those guys really genin? They're just asking for trouble."

"Looks like I have a reason to convince my dad that I don't need to go to school."

A pineapple-haired boy sitting atop a small dirt slope looked thoughtful, the corners of his mouth slowly curling upward.

"Give it up, Shikamaru."

"Crunch, crunch."

"Aunt Yoshino will hang you up and beat you."

"Crunch, crunch."

The chubby boy beside him kept stuffing chips into his mouth. His tiny eyes held an inexplicable fear toward the boy in his sight.

He had heard that Hishi, one of the older boys in the clan, had been punched so hard by that guy that his shoulder dislocated.

"Watch your mouth! Do you still want to eat? If not, give me back my chips!"

Shikamaru Nara immediately flew into a rage.

At home, he was not afraid of his father at all, because his mother was the one who held the power...

"Huff, huff..."

At the center of the training grounds, Arata bent over as he panted. His clothes were torn, and streaks of blood ran down his arms.

He appeared somewhat exhausted.

As for the surroundings, no one remained standing!

More than a dozen genin lay scattered across the ground, all kinds of ninja tools strewn around them. Their eyes were filled with terror, and they wished they could pass out like Kazama Hajime.

"What are you doing?!"

The chunin responsible for this area roared from the far end of the field.

He had been eating breakfast and had not failed to notice the chakra fluctuations coming from the training grounds. But as its name implied, this was a place for genin to train on their own.

Those young brats always liked showing off the new ninjutsu they had mastered here.

A few sparring matches were normal, and chakra fluctuations were nothing unusual.

But those fluctuations had suddenly stopped!

At first, he had not paid much attention. After all, no one's chakra was limitless.

But when not another ripple arose, the strange silence finally made his heart race.

Arata ignored him.

He adjusted his breathing, doing his best to make himself look more miserable.

Because he wanted to catch that watcher.

That crafty bastard had released chakra fluctuations several times, as if preparing to intervene, only to suddenly restrain them at the last moment, as though testing him.

"Help! Arata... Arata wants to kill us!"

Upon seeing the green ninja flak jacket that symbolized strength, one genin lying on the ground twisted his face and cried for help.

At that.

Arata's indifferent gaze fell upon the genin who had spoken.

A convincing smear of blood lingered at the corner of the man's mouth, but he did not look nearly as miserable as the companions around him. Especially those narrow eyes of his, which were filled with hatred.

Arata remembered that this was the guy who had first incited the surrounding ninja to gang up on him.

And had this guy personally joined in at all?

Arata was puzzled.

"No, you're wrong."

A cold murmur left his lips.

"All I wanted was..."

Seeing the boy approach step by step, Shiro Uemura suddenly sprang up, fleeing as fast as a startled rabbit.

This guy had been pretending after all!

"...to cripple you."

Arata raised his right hand and pointed in the direction Shiro was fleeing.

Two ice spikes materialized out of thin air, instantly pinning the panicked runner in place. Before the gushing blood could even flow down, it had already frozen solid.

As the instigator, Arata's face quietly paled, as though he had exhausted his strength.

"Arata Uchiha!"

The late-arriving chunin's eyes turned red, his voice full of hatred.

So the rumors spreading through the village were true. A criminal who ambushed his companions!

He should never have allowed this bastard inside!

At that moment, a figure flashed out from the shadows. Despite moving later, he arrived first, his speed comparable to Teacher Hayate's.

Most importantly, he held a wakizashi, its blade already drawn!

Looking again, the man's ninja blade had already stabbed into Arata's side. It was not fatal, but enough to make someone lose the ability to fight.

"What?"

The approaching chunin came to an abrupt stop. He no longer knew how to judge the scene before him.

"An Anbu was here too, in that outfit?"

"Then why hadn't he stopped this one-sided assault?"

But in the next second, he had no time to think about why an Anbu was here.

Because Arata's figure quietly shattered like a dream bubble.

"Genjutsu?!"

Sensing that something was wrong, the Anbu was just about to flee when a swift side kick swept him to the ground.

He specialized in concealment and assassination. His direct combat power was not particularly strong.

After hitting the ground, the ninja wearing a white mask immediately tried to form hand seals and escape. He knew clearly that this mission had already failed.

But faster than his hand seals was a Horizontal Blade.

Clang.

Shattered stones sprayed across his head as a blade radiating cold light pierced the earth diagonally beside his eye. At such close range, it even cut a crack into the mask on his face, leaving a shallow line of blood on his cheek.

"Move again?"

A whisper like an evil ghost's murmur sounded beside his ear.

Before his eyes were those utterly cold Sharingan.