"Hahahaha, so you're the relative Tsunade told me about—the one who was lost outside the clan? Hmm, not bad. You certainly don't look like an ordinary child. Hahaha, huh?"
Why did this child's face look so familiar?
"Oh, you must be the famed Professor of Ninjutsu, the Third Hokage of Konoha, old man Hiruzen Sarutobi."
Fei Shi spoke up, wondering how the old geezer knew who he was.
"Hahaha, it's all just a reputation. Old folks like us are past our prime. The future belongs to young people like you." He seemed to notice Fei Shi's confusion and continued, "Tsunade told me about you. She said you were thinking of settling down in Konoha and asked this old man to look after you. Since you're Tsunade's younger brother and a descendant of Lord First and Lord Second, you can feel at ease settling in Konoha. I'll vouch for you."
Fei Shi suddenly understood. Thanks for going to all that trouble, sis. Was she trying to give him a background so that certain people wouldn't take notice and cause him trouble?
He couldn't help feeling warmed by it.
Minato Namikaze spoke up. "Could you show me what you can do? My wife's life is at stake, after all."
"That's right. Tsunade told me about you, but we'd still like to see for ourselves. If anything goes wrong, it would be a devastating blow to Konoha. And my wife will be delivering Kushina's baby. So, for both public and personal reasons, Minato and I need to know what you can do and what methods you have."
Hiruzen Sarutobi and Minato Namikaze looked at him solemnly.
It was still because of his age, Fei Shi thought. Then he nodded. "All right."
"Wood Style: Wood Dragon Technique!"
"Adamantine Sealing Chains!"
Fei Shi controlled his chakra, forming a tiny Wood Dragon and golden chains. At the same time, chakra on par with a Tailed Beast's erupted from him.
Because of his age, his body hadn't fully matured, so he couldn't yet bring all of his abilities to bear. Even so, thanks to the Sage Body he'd gained through atavism, his chakra could rival Matatabi's. Once he reached around twenty, he should be able to unleash the full power of both his Sage Body and the Sage Eye he'd gained through atavism.
Minato Namikaze and Hiruzen Sarutobi were completely stunned.
What was this?! Could a human really possess this much chakra? And he was only eleven, yet he already had a Tailed Beast's level of chakra. The key point was that he wasn't a Jinchūriki! And he had Wood Release, too. His future was... limitless!
Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes were practically sparkling. The Third Shinobi World War was still raging, and Konoha had already suffered heavy losses. Even when the war ended, Konoha wasn't likely to come out ahead. Konoha had paid a steep price in every war, and it was no longer the strongest ninja village it once had been.
Now the Konoha Sannin had left the village, and Konoha lacked high-level combat power. As for the village elders... never mind. They were useless teammates...
If this child joined Konoha and stayed, there was every chance they could train him to become the next God of the Ninja World. He could deter the entire Ninja World for decades all by himself—or even longer!
So... they couldn't let him leave. They had to trick—no, persuade him to fall in love with Konoha. And they had to make sure certain people kept their hands to themselves. If they reached out... they'd lose them!
"And there's this, too—the Sharingan!"
"T-this is the Sharingan! And it's a form we've never seen before. Is that the Mangekyō Sharingan, the Sharingan that can control Tailed Beasts? That can't be possible!"
By now, Hiruzen Sarutobi and Minato Namikaze were almost numb with shock. Was he not only a descendant of the Senju and Uzumaki Clans, but did he also have Uchiha blood? He had the Mangekyō Sharingan at eleven... Why did it have to be the Sharingan? They both thought the same thing.
Minato Namikaze was worried about his wife. He trusted Tsunade completely, but that didn't mean he could trust Fei Shi just as much. His wife's safety and Konoha's were at stake. Even though he wasn't as hostile toward the Uchiha Clan in the village, had tried to ease the tension between them and Konoha, and was on good terms with them personally, that didn't mean he would let them near his wife when her life was on the line. You could never know what someone was thinking. And this was an Uchiha who'd grown up outside the village, no less.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, meanwhile, was always on guard against the Uchiha Clan. After all, like his teacher, Second Tobirama Senju, he feared that another shinobi like Madara Uchiha might appear. There was no one like Hashirama Senju around now. If someone like that went on a rampage, who could stop him? And awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan meant witnessing the death of someone dear to him. Hiruzen worried that it might leave Fei Shi emotionally unstable and extreme, making him more likely to hurt others... Sigh, if only you hadn't revealed it...
"I want to settle down in Konoha, so I've revealed all my trump cards. Honesty is the first step toward mutual trust, and I think that's important. Besides, my sister knows what I can do."
As their minds raced with all sorts of thoughts, Fei Shi suddenly spoke up.
"And I think I'm perfectly normal. The Mangekyō Sharingan only awakens under extreme emotions. My closest relatives died when I was very young..."
"Since you put it that way, I'll swallow my pride and ask. I've heard about this from Teacher Tobirama. If your closest relatives had already died... how did you awaken the Mangekyō?"
Minato Namikaze was a little surprised. Fei Shi had said they should be honest with one another, but Minato didn't think it was right to ask about someone's private affairs. Still, he understood why Hiruzen Sarutobi needed to ask—and that Hiruzen was asking on his behalf. The meaning was different when the leader of Konoha asked someone about their personal life.
If there was nothing wrong with this child... how strong would he become once he was older, when he already had Kage Level strength? Could the combination of Wood Release and the Sharingan make him even stronger than those two legendary figures?
"..."
"Well, um..." Fei Shi scratched his head awkwardly.
"It happened when I was feeling extremely frustrated. My... sister... bullied me. Yeah... she bullied me."
Damn it, if he'd known they'd ask about this, he wouldn't have said anything about honesty.
Just thinking about it made him angry.
At the time, he would've awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan in about another week, thanks to the Enhancement Card.
But he'd lost a game to Shizune, so Tsunade had forced Shizune to make him dress as a girl. Then she'd dragged him around outside dressed like that all day. It had been humiliating—utterly humiliating. The person who would one day surpass the Sage of Six Paths had been made to spend an entire day walking around in women's clothes.
And in his memories, his father, Uchiha Ping, had only looked about fifty percent like his grandfather, Madara Uchiha. His father had even said Fei Shi looked more like his mother. But Fei Shi had inherited his looks from the previous generation and resembled Madara Uchiha by eighty percent. With a manly face like his, being made to go out dressed as a girl had made him want to die.
Seeing his guilty expression, the two men couldn't help feeling curious, but they didn't press him. Asking too many questions might give Fei Shi a bad impression of Konoha, and that would be a problem.
"Is there anything you'd like to ask?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi was an old hand at this, and Minato Namikaze understood, too. In a situation like this, it was more appropriate for Hiruzen Sarutobi to speak up. After all, Fei Shi was Tsunade's younger brother, and Minato was the student of Jiraiya, Tsunade's close friend. That made him Fei Shi's... teacher's nephew. Being the teacher's nephew of an eleven-year-old was a little awkward.
Before you continue