A Peerless Genius

Inuzuka Yuka snatched the scroll from Kakashi's hands.

The fluffy white tail behind her shot straight up.

"That bastard Yatsuhashi..."

She gritted her teeth.

Even the white fur at the tip of her tail stood on end.

Because of Uchiha Yatsuhashi, her experiments had been put on hold for the past few days.

Although she had written down all her new, untested experimental ideas in her notebook,

the mere thought of that man filled Inuzuka Yuka with seething disgust.

Back in the laboratory,

Inuzuka Yuka puffed up with anger as she prepared to open the scroll.

She slapped it onto the table,

then deftly pulled out all sorts of experimental equipment.

"Huh?!"

The instant Inuzuka Yuka took out the tools she used exclusively for her own experiments,

the tail standing straight behind her suddenly went rigid.

Inuzuka Yuka's keen nose twitched slightly.

Her already angry expression immediately turned even more furious,

until she was trembling with rage.

Someone had dared to use her tools without permission.

Though the person had carefully wiped them down and left not a single trace,

she had still detected

the unfamiliar scent lingering on the equipment.

There was nowhere for the owner of that scent to hide from Inuzuka Yuka's nose.

That person was none other than Uchiha Yatsuhashi himself.

"Yatsuhashi, you bastard! You even dared to touch my things!"

Yatsuhashi's actions made Inuzuka Yuka grind her teeth in anger.

She was about to explode, but suddenly narrowed her eyes.

Even her stiff tail drooped and began to sway gently.

"Wait... something's not right."

Inuzuka Yuka had assumed Yatsuhashi had only fiddled with her experimental equipment because he was bored.

But as she sorted through all the equipment he had used,

a strange sense of incongruity welled up inside her.

She had discovered something utterly bizarre.

The tools Yatsuhashi had used

were all connected in some way.

Together, they seemed to form two remarkably complete experimental procedures.

"T-That can't be..."

Inuzuka Yuka closed her eyes.

Her instinct as a researcher instantly overpowered her emotions.

In her mind,

the scattered equipment seemed to come alive, arranging itself into a coherent order.

Two exquisitely designed experimental procedures that even overturned her previous way of thinking

now appeared clearly in her mind.

"Hm?!"

Inuzuka Yuka snapped her eyes open.

Her tail, which had been swaying gently,

now swung excitedly behind her as if she had spotted some prey.

Yatsuhashi's methods were astonishingly skillful.

Even without many crucial tools,

he had used the equipment at hand to devise alternative steps she would never have expected.

Rather than hindering his progress,

this had given Inuzuka Yuka a tremendous burst of inspiration.

"His grasp of scientific theory... is actually far beyond mine."

Inuzuka Yuka was deeply shaken.

After all,

there was no reason she wouldn't have noticed a researcher with Yatsuhashi's theoretical expertise before now.

Inuzuka Yuka immediately searched the archives for Yatsuhashi's detailed personal history.

"Special Genin?"

Aside from the conspicuous designation of Special Genin, however, there was nothing particularly unusual in the records.

After Yatsuhashi joined the Anbu,

Minato Namikaze had deliberately hidden part of his personal file.

With her current clearance, Inuzuka Yuka couldn't access the complete records.

Still, the word "Special" in "Special Genin"

made her realize there was something unusual about the title.

There were many Special Jōnin in the village.

Although they belonged to the Jōnin ranks,

their overall strength was still somewhere between Chunin and Jōnin.

They hadn't quite met the standards expected of a Jōnin.

They had simply excelled in a particular field,

so they had been promoted from Chunin

to Special Jōnin as an exception.

But what in the world was a "Special Genin"?

Inuzuka Yuka was stunned.

Yatsuhashi might well be the only one of his kind in all of Konoha.

He was even more unusual than a Special Jōnin.

After all, no matter how great the gap in strength between Chunin and Jōnin,

they were still both ninjas.

But a Special Genin was something created from nothing—

a ninja category artificially forced into existence.

And in the village, this category belonged exclusively to Yatsuhashi.

You could even say

it had been created just for him.

Seeing that this line of inquiry had led nowhere,

Inuzuka Yuka tried a different approach.

She began searching the archives for the person who had recommended Yatsuhashi for Special Genin.

But she was disappointed again.

No matter how thoroughly she searched,

the mysterious recommender had vanished without a trace from Yatsuhashi's file.

His information had also been sealed by the village's leadership.

One setback after another left Inuzuka Yuka feeling disheartened,

and even her fluffy white tail drooped.

"Wait!"

Inuzuka Yuka's eyes suddenly lit up.

Her tail shot up and started wagging excitedly again.

"I don't need to find out who recommended Yatsuhashi.

I only need to figure out who in the village has the authority to recommend someone!"

"Then I can eliminate them one by one,

and whoever's left will be the mysterious person in Yatsuhashi's file."

With that thought,

Inuzuka Yuka's fluffy white tail wagged even more vigorously behind her.

In just a moment,

Inuzuka Yuka had uncovered the mysterious person behind Yatsuhashi.

After all, only a handful of powerful, high-ranking people in the village had the authority to make recommendations.

The process of elimination quickly gave her the answer.

But when she saw who it was, Inuzuka Yuka's face changed dramatically.

It was none other than the infamous Orochimaru.

Though much of Orochimaru's file had also been sealed,

the massive document contained only a few brief descriptions:

Hiruzen Sarutobi's disciple, one of the Konoha Sannin, forbidden human experiments, a formidable contender for the Fourth Hokage, and an S-rank rogue ninja of Konoha.

The only information related to research concerned the human experiments that had made Orochimaru infamous and drawn so much controversy.

And behind those forbidden experiments,

Orochimaru's file

also concealed a mysterious figure who had been involved in nearly all of his experiments.

Inuzuka Yuka's mind gradually brought the two mysterious figures together.

A simple cross-check was all it took for the answer to become clear.

"I see..."

After a moment of thought, Inuzuka Yuka reached her final conclusion.

"No wonder Yatsuhashi is such a capable researcher. He was Orochimaru's research disciple.

That explains Yatsuhashi's exceptional research skills."

At last, she had found a reasonable explanation.

Unfortunately, Inuzuka Yuka didn't know the truth.

The truth was far more shocking than she could have imagined.

Orochimaru and Yatsuhashi

were actually equal partners.

Even Orochimaru himself had to admit in his heart

that Yatsuhashi was a peerless genius, one in ten thousand,

a top researcher of extraordinary rarity who far surpassed him.