Konoha, Year 39, July
Konoha Hospital
Along the long corridor, medical ninja hurried back and forth as injured people were brought in one after another. The hospital, which should have been quiet, echoed with faint sobs from every direction, making Uchiha Suifeng increasingly irritable.
"Konoha, the Hokage, the Uchiha... I got one-shot by Kakashi!"
Confused memories flashed through his mind like scenes from a movie.
"Suifeng, you're awake!"
A delighted voice came from the doorway. A figure rushed to his bedside and pulled him into a tight embrace.
"Not Tsunade. One star!"
Suifeng struggled free of the other person's arms and rubbed his eyes.
"Suifeng, you awakened your Sharingan!"
Another cry of surprise.
"Oh, I awakened it?!"
He lowered his hand from his eyes, and his heart stirred. In his previous life, he hadn't been a huge Naruto fan, but he had watched hundreds of episodes of the legendary eye saga. He knew all too well how utterly ridiculous the Uchiha clan's bloodline trait was—perhaps even better than Madara Uchiha did.
The previous owner of this body, a member of the Uchiha clan, had watched Kakashi—who was a year younger than him—apply for early graduation. Unwilling to accept it, he'd challenged him and been beaten badly. Overwhelmed with anger and agitation, he awakened the Sharingan, and then...
There was no then for him.
After he passed out, the one who woke up in his place was a middle-aged man from Earth named Liu Feng.
A medical whiz at a county hospital in a third-tier city, divorced.
Skilled at appendectomies and circumcisions...
His mind-numbingly dull life had been propped up by manga. The reason for his transmigration was unknown.
As a middle-aged man weathered by life, he might have been just as lecherous as a hot-blooded boy of fifteen or sixteen, but he was long past his chuunibyou phase. Suddenly finding himself in a world like this meant he had to adjust—and figure out how to survive.
Third, the woman in front of him was his biological aunt. She wasn't going to stir any desire in him...
All right, that was beside the point.
After three days in the hospital, he returned home. During those three days, he'd nearly finished sorting through Uchiha Suifeng's memories.
Uchiha Suifeng had been born in Konoha's Year 33. An ordinary member of the Uchiha clan, he had two younger cousins: Obito Uchiha and Shisui. His parents were both dead, and he had no siblings.
"So, in the future, I'll have to find a way to get my Mangekyo from one of those two?"
That was what he thought.
All right, he'd only just awakened one tomoe. It was a bit early to be thinking about that.
But maybe it wasn't that early. After all, in seventeen years, the Uchiha clan would be wiped out.
Seventeen years sounded like a long time, but to a weathered old man over forty, it wasn't enough to get much done.
"Fire, Earth, and Lightning chakra natures. I guess I count as a genius, but what the hell does being a genius get you in this world?"
Geniuses were a dime a dozen in this world. Take the Ninja Academy, for instance: the top three in every graduating class were called geniuses, but how many of them actually made it?
"I don't think I have a cheat, huh? Where's the standard transmigrator package? I'd settle for a cup of Ganges water."
That was what bothered him most. A few days after transmigrating, he realized he'd somehow lost his cheat along the way. In other words, he was just an ordinary Uchiha now.
"Maybe I should think about changing careers!"
There was no helping it. From Suifeng's incomplete memories, he'd learned that Suifeng trained incredibly hard and diligently. How hard? Harder than he could manage, that was for sure.
A few days ago, he'd been a middle-aged man who sat in front of a computer all day, picking his feet. How could he suddenly start training through the coldest days of winter and the hottest days of summer?
He couldn't even make himself run a kilometer every day!!
Without a cheat, what was the point? He might as well change careers early. The big merchants in this world seemed to live pretty comfortably, too!!
He had no grand ambitions or over-the-top chuunibyou dreams. On his third day as a student at the Ninja Academy, he'd already started thinking about changing careers.
Change careers?
Keep dreaming.
Reality soon gave him a harsh beating!
Although he'd lost to Kakashi and disgraced the Uchiha clan, there was no denying that he'd awakened the Sharingan at six. Someone who awakened the Sharingan at that age was undoubtedly one of the clan's standouts.
"Suifeng, you may have lost this time, but you awakened the Sharingan as well. You could say it was a blessing in disguise. From today on, you won't go to school. I'll have Fukuyama train you properly. With your talent and abilities, you can apply for early graduation in three months at most. Then you can challenge Kakashi again and wipe away your humiliation!"
The old man before him was the clan's Great Elder and the leader of the Council of Elders. He held a position in the clan equal to the clan head's, and even had more influence than the clan head. He was also the leader of Suifeng's branch.
The Uchiha were a single clan, but they were divided into four branches according to blood ties. Each of the three elders led a branch, and the clan head led the fourth. Both Suifeng and Obito belonged to the Great Elder's branch, as would Shisui in the future.
The Great Elder before him was the older brother of Shisui's father, Uchiha Kagami. He was also Suifeng's father's older brother.
Speaking of his branch, the names they'd chosen for this generation were pretty interesting: Earth, Water, Wind, and so on. It was as if they planned to cover every chakra nature.
Too bad Suifeng was named after the wind, but he didn't have a Wind nature at all. What a ridiculous name!
For the first time, he felt the old man's presence. It wasn't just some word from a novel or manga. It was a real, tangible sensation. A presence as substantial as a mountain pressed down on him, leaving him breathless. He didn't have the courage to refuse.
Actually, even without that presence, he wouldn't have refused...
He didn't have the guts!
In a word: coward.
The next day, Uchiha Clan Compound, training ground
Suifeng sat sprawled on the ground, drenched in sweat and gasping for breath. His lungs felt like they were about to catch fire, every muscle in his body ached, and he didn't want to move even his little finger.
Uchiha Fukuyama's name might not have sounded imposing, but he was a genuine jonin. A stern and rigid man, he naturally held nothing back during training.
His demands were terrifyingly high, but what Suifeng hadn't expected was that he'd managed to stick it out, even if he'd ended up a mess.
That was all thanks to the foundation Uchiha Suifeng had built before him. As a child of Konoha's most prominent clan, he wasn't like Naruto, who couldn't even perform the Three Body Technique properly by the time he graduated.
He'd started basic ninja training early. Though he'd been limited by his age, he'd already mastered the Three Body Technique, basic chakra extraction, basic Body Techniques, and the fundamentals of the Uchiha Style throwing technique. Before challenging Kakashi, he'd even begun practicing tree climbing and Water Walking. For a six-year-old, he had a solid foundation. That was what had let him survive the first day of training. But it was only the first day. Could he make it through tomorrow?!
Clearly, Uchiha Fukuyama was far from satisfied with his performance.
"Do you think you can beat Kakashi when you're in this state?" Uchiha Fukuyama asked, his expression unchanged. "You can't even last half a day. At this rate, you might as well skip the challenge and die here!"
"I, I, I..."
In an instant, Suifeng felt a piercing killing intent seep into his mind. He hurriedly opened his mouth and stammered for a while. Then his expression suddenly changed, and joy shone in his eyes. "I freaking have a cheat now!"
Before you continue