Chapter 3

"Heh, I'd gotten tired of that jutsu when I was four. You only learned it at six, and you still dare brag about being a genius of the millennium? You're more like a tortoise of the millennium!"

Madara was needling him scornfully when he noticed a wave of heat radiating from the direction of Mingye, who stood nearby.

"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"

Mingye raised an eyebrow and rapidly formed Hand Seals, spitting out a huge fireball that hurtled straight toward Madara. Madara only began forming Hand Seals at the last moment, when the fireball was about to hit him. A slightly smaller fireball burst from his lips and collided with the incoming one. A massive cloud of dust billowed up between them. Madara didn't stop there. He formed the "Tiger" seal and smiled.

"Fire Style: Fire Fly Jutsu!"

Splash!

Countless tiny flames shot toward Mingye. After they scattered the dust, Madara discovered Mingye had already jumped into the lake. The C-rank "Fire Fly Jutsu" couldn't penetrate the water and hurt him at all. Madara, deeply annoyed, folded his arms and walked to the shore. Looking at Mingye, who was hiding in the water with only half his head showing, he demanded, "Mingye, what's the meaning of this?"

"You're attacking me. Am I not allowed to run?" Mingye replied as if it were obvious. After casting one Fire Style jutsu, his chakra was already almost depleted. How could he keep fighting a jerk like Madara? He'd simply jumped into the lake. As far as he knew, his older brother was proud and never used any of the other four nature transformations besides Fire Style. Even if Madara knew them, he'd never deign to use them. Mingye had seized on this weakness of his brother's and jumped straight into the lake.

"...!"

Madara was speechless for a moment. He did have a hundred ways to force Mingye out of the lake, but all of them required using a nature transformation other than Fire Style. Madara was too proud, and though beating up Mingye made him happy, it wasn't enough to make him use any jutsu besides Fire Style. So he stopped paying Mingye any mind and turned toward home.

When Mingye returned to the clan grounds alone, he found that seven white flags had been raised once again. His heart jolted. From the day he was born until now, he'd never seen the Uchiha Clan raise so many white flags after a single battle.

"One white flag for every life lost. I never thought we'd suffer such heavy losses in this clash, too," said Uchiha Shimizu, Mingye's uncle—the younger brother of Tajima—as he stood beside him, his voice heavy with grief.

"Uncle!"

"Go inside and take a look. We were too careless with this mission." Shimizu had no heart to explain further. When Mingye bowed to him, he patted his shoulder and walked through the entrance to the clan grounds.

Shimizu was so overcome with grief that he didn't wish to speak with him any longer. Mingye followed him into the grounds without a word. Seven coffins met his eyes. His father, Tajima, was covered in wounds, while Madara knelt beside him, tending to his injuries.

"I never expected those bastards from the Senju Clan to get involved in this mission. It seems they intend to formally enter the Land of Fire as well. We must be on our guard at all times from now on. Until I recover, avoid direct clashes with them. Once I'm healed, I'll wipe out every last one of those bastards!" Tajima shoved Madara aside. The wound on his body split open again as he moved, but he stood proudly before the clan members and made his vow.

"Father!" Madara voiced his concern at the sight of Tajima's reopened wound, but Tajima silenced him with a glance before addressing everyone again.

"It's nothing! This is the will that defines our clan. From this day forward, you must all work even harder. As long as we kill every member of the Senju Clan, we can honor our ancestors!"

"Yes, Clan Head! Kill the Senju bastards! Kill the Senju—!" The Uchiha Clan members' eyes burned with hatred and fury. They stared resolutely at Tajima and shouted in unison.

After everyone dispersed, Shimizu carefully helped Tajima into the study. Madara and Izuna followed close behind. Mingye paused for a moment, then followed his two older brothers inside as well.

"Those wounds don't look like they were caused by the Senju Clan." After helping Tajima sit down, Shimizu rebandaged his injuries and spoke.

"The bastards from the Hagoromo Clan were there too." Tajima sighed and shook his head, answering Shimizu with a helpless look.

"This conflict is going to drag on for a long time again." Hearing the name of the Hagoromo Clan and thinking of the Senju Clan's appearance, Shimizu sighed and shook his head.

"Go make preparations. While I'm recovering, you'll contact the general and protect our clan's interests." Tajima didn't want to discuss these matters in front of his three children, so he gave Shimizu an order.

"Understood."

Shimizu nodded, knowing his elder brother was dismissing him. He stood up, replied, and left the study. Only after Shimizu had closed the door behind him did Tajima look at his three sons.

"You three, come here!"

"Father!" The three brothers approached Tajima and knelt before him.

"How is Mingye's Great Fireball Technique coming along?" Tajima's voice sounded weak from his injuries. He looked at Madara and asked about Mingye's progress.

"He can cast it at will now. His chakra control is still a little lacking, but when it comes to casting and learning jutsu, my younger brother is the most talented in the clan." Madara looked up at his father and answered seriously. He might have liked eating, sleeping, and beating up his younger brother, but he was always strict about serious matters. His honest answer left Mingye deeply impressed.

Tajima nodded in satisfaction, then looked at Mingye and said earnestly, "Seven clan members died today. Mingye, I know you hate fighting, but you're a member of the Uchiha Clan, so you must fight for the clan's honor. If you don't want me to force you onto the battlefield, where the enemy will slaughter you, then you must learn to take up a weapon and kill every enemy you see!"

"I understand, Father." Mingye knew his father meant well, so he answered respectfully.

"Then do as you're told. I happen to have some free time while I recover, so I'll personally teach you how to train in ninjutsu." Tajima was very pleased that Mingye had learned the Great Fireball Technique in a single night. "Father, I want to learn a jutsu, but I only know how it works. I don't know how to make it function, so I'd like you to help me perfect it." Mingye suddenly remembered that the Shadow Clone Technique didn't seem to exist in this era. That was probably why so many lives were lost needlessly in combat and reconnaissance. If he could improve the Clone Technique into the Shadow Clone Technique, he could prevent those casualties, right?

"You want to alter the Clone Technique? You'd split your chakra and distribute it among the clones. Wouldn't that just make you weaker?" Izuna looked at Mingye in confusion. Why would Mingye design a jutsu like that? If you compared a person to one, then dividing that one into several parts would only make the original weaker and weaker. It didn't seem useful in battle at all.

Mingye shook his head and carefully explained the Shadow Clone Technique's principles to the three of them. Its advantage was that it could instantly send back information from a thousand miles away to the original. Ordinary clones didn't have this ability, which was why this jutsu was considered forbidden: it was a B-rank jutsu with no offensive capabilities, yet it was kept in the forbidden scroll.

"Big brother, have you ever considered that if each clone only receives half your chakra, the results might be poor, but what if we made ten clones? Twenty? Even thirty, or a hundred? If the number exceeds what we can manage, couldn't we become what you might call battle-hardened? If we could make a thousand clones in a day and have them train at full capacity, then when they all returned, the experience we gained would increase by a geometric multiple. Then what we think of as the jutsu's weakness would become its strength!"

"Hmm. If the jutsu Mingye described can really be perfected, then apart from those Byakugan users of the Hyuga Clan, no one should be able to detect it. We could learn some of the enemy's tactics without losing any fighting strength, and even avoid surprise attacks in traps. Not bad, not bad. But... Mingye, I'll need some time to work on this jutsu. You may all leave for now. I'll give you some guidance on it tomorrow." Tajima spent several minutes thinking it over, carefully calculating whether the jutsu could be created. Once he'd reached a conclusion, he needed time alone to reflect. He dismissed his three sons.