They both knew what mattered.
The Third Hokage and Kakashi left.
After a long while, Neji stood up in the corridor and gazed at the goldfish swimming in the pond in the middle of the courtyard.
"Sasuke, this time, I won't lose to you."
Leading the team to Sunagakure for the Chunin Ninja Exams wasn't a big deal to Neji.
Challenging Sasuke again and beating him was what he wanted to do now.
As for why neither of them had thought about challenging Yeyu—
Sasuke had tried before, more than once, but Yeyu's power was like a black hole, impossible to fathom.
And the gap between them had only grown wider.
It wasn't a visible gap, but an unknown, overwhelming power that inspired despair.
Naturally, neither of them bothered with anything so pointless anymore.
At the Uchiha Clan compound.
Sasuke returned home.
The entire Uchiha Clan compound lay in complete silence in the dead of night.
He had grown used to the atmosphere.
Many of the properties and plots of land in the Uchiha Clan compound belonged to Sasuke.
They had once been managed by the village's administration office.
Now, they had all been handed over to Sasuke.
After all, Sasuke was now the deputy captain of Konoha's Anbu.
His authority was second only to the Third Hokage, Yeyu, and the two Hokage Advisors, putting him on a par with Danzo.
It was a position of power the Uchiha Clan had once never dared to dream of.
Unfortunately, he was now the only one left in the entire Uchiha Clan.
Sasuke lived in the same house where he had once lived with his parents.
It was spacious.
But since Sasuke was the only one living there, he used only a small part of it.
The rest of the house was