The Night of the Uchiha Clan's Annihilation

After learning the Shadow Clone Technique from Hyuga Hiashi, Aoike used the Transformation Technique to hide among cargo and slip out of Konoha.

Over the next few months, to avoid detection by the Otsutsuki, he used Shadow Clones twice to follow them from a distance whenever they traveled to and from Earth.

Now seven years old, Aoike had finally discovered the location of the gateway between the Earth and the Moon.

Today, however, there was a matter of greater importance to Konoha.

Aoike had long since noticed that the Police Force had gone almost silent recently; he no longer saw any Uchiha clansmen idling on the streets.

Combined with the delayed school dismissal and the fact that Sasuke was seven, it was almost certain that the day of the Uchiha clan's annihilation was today.

Sure enough, the next day, Sasuke did not come to class, and a volatile Sakura began picking a fight with Naruto.

At this moment, Naruto still did not know what had happened to Sasuke, and he was still leaning back in his seat, looking carefree.

"That cocky Sasuke must be scared of this great me, that's why he didn't dare show up!"

Naruto shouted loudly, completely ignoring Sakura's hair, which was standing on end in defiance of gravity.

As the fist of justice descended, the classroom finally quieted down—for no other reason than Iruka had entered.

He said with a heavy expression, "Because of a sudden change in Sasuke's family, he will not be coming to the Ninja Academy for classes in the near future..."

As the final exams approached, most people did not pay much attention to Sasuke's situation.

However, Aoike knew that the Uchiha massacre could not be hidden for long; once the news spread, it would surely shock the entire Ninja World.

After the Senju and Uzumaki clans had vanished one after another, the Uchiha were, without question, the premier clan of Konoha and even the entire Ninja World.

Once they were wiped out overnight, spies from other ninja villages or organizations would naturally seize the opportunity to infiltrate Konoha and probe the strength of the Five Great Villages' leader.

When that time came, a bloodbath would be inevitable.

But that had little to do with Aoike.

If not for his lack of strength, he would have liked to take the opportunity to snatch a few pairs of Sharingan to play with. If one were to pair them with Izanagi, it would be equivalent to having a resurrection coin—who wouldn't be tempted by that?

It was a pity that the conditions did not allow for it.

Hinata, standing beside him, only heard Aoike muttering to himself and turned her head to ask curiously, "Brother Aoike, what are you talking about?"

"It's nothing, Hinata. I'm just looking forward to the upcoming vacation."

Hinata gripped the corners of her clothes, acting a bit shy, her face flushed with a deep red.

"Then... Brother... will you still train with me this vacation...?"

Her voice grew quieter, but the anticipation in her words did not diminish in the slightest.

Aoike walked with Hinata on the road back to the Hyuga compound.

"Naturally."

In the courtyard of his home, a chakra test paper burned, split, crumbled, and dampened between Aoike's fingers—he possessed talent in all four chakra natures.

A curve appeared at the corner of Aoike's mouth.

With this, the jutsu he had envisioned would be powerful enough, at least in the early stages.

He took a deep breath, assumed a stance, and let a bit of chakra spill from his acupoints, causing it to rotate clockwise.

Rotation!

A hemispherical chakra shield protected Aoike, forming what was known as the absolute defense.

Ten seconds later, Aoike stopped. The difficulty of Rotation lay in the control of one's acupoints and chakra, a standard Aoike had long since met.

The new jutsu Aoike wanted to develop based on Rotation was similar to the Cloud Village's Lightning Style and the Tailed Beast Chakra Cloak. The former required masochistic training to achieve any success, while the latter required a massive amount of chakra.

Although seven-year-old Aoike already had a chakra reserve of one "Kakashi," it was far from enough to achieve a chakra cloak.

Therefore, the principle of the new jutsu had to rely on his extremely high control over chakra nature transformation, supplemented by the Byakugan, to have chakra wind around his body through his acupoints, point by point, eventually forming his own chakra mode.

The difficulty of this jutsu was by no means low.

But for me, this is the most suitable jutsu to develop right now.

Having made up his mind, he immediately began practicing chakra nature transformation; the most suitable ones to start with were naturally the Water and Wind attributes.

With his experience in Wind Style training, the first chakra mode would naturally be best suited for Wind Style.

He had learned tree climbing and water walking at age six, so what he needed to do now was master nature transformation.

Aoike held a leaf in his hand, injecting chakra to try and separate the veins from the leaf tissue, but his first attempt ended in failure.

Aoike was not in a hurry; he had plenty of time at the Ninja Academy. Once he completed this jutsu, it would be time to apply for graduation and see some blood to grind for experience.

From then on, having finished his Gentle Fist training, he began to devote himself to the development of his new jutsu.

Days passed one by one. Purposeful training always made time fly. During this period, as the progress of his new jutsu accelerated, he also had to deal with the challenges from "Sasuke the Second."

Ever since Sasuke recovered, training for revenge had become an obsession in his heart. However, unlike Aoike, Sasuke lacked guidance and possessed limited insight.

This meant his training results could only be considered excellent among the students, but compared to Kakashi and Itachi, they were nothing to speak of.

At least Aoike had the Gentle Fist to use as a reference; after his clan was wiped out, Sasuke was left with nothing but a few meager assets.

Sasuke's current skill set consisted of the Great Fireball, shurikenjutsu, and taijutsu.

Another year passed, and Aoike was now eight years old.

During the end-of-term combat assessment, Sasuke unexpectedly chose Aoike as his opponent again.

One had to know that Aoike had already beaten him up just two days prior. Based on past experience, Sasuke would usually wait a week before issuing another challenge, so what was going on today?

What Aoike didn't know was that after being defeated again two days ago, Sasuke's resolve had nearly shattered. In his mind, Itachi was the greatest genius, and Aoike, who had defeated him repeatedly over the past year, was second. The fact that he couldn't even overcome the mountain that was Aoike left him feeling lost regarding his path of revenge.

Under the weight of this pent-up frustration, the One-Tomoe Sharingan, which had long since awakened and then fallen dormant, manifested after he pounded the ground again and again.

In other words, Sasuke, now with his One-Tomoe Sharingan, felt that the clouds had cleared, the rain had stopped, and he was back in the game.