Chapter 2

Fugaku's brows knotted, and he roared at him with anger in his voice. "Dad, sorry, I suddenly thought of something fun."

"You and my brother have serious business to discuss, so I won't stay here and get in the way."

"Can I go take a nap first?"

Sasuke immediately sat up straight and asked with a solemn face. "Get lost."

Fugaku waved a hand.

He was not so petty that he would take out his bad mood on a five-year-old child for no reason.

With Fugaku's permission, Sasuke slipped out of the living room as if his feet were greased and headed straight for his room.

After closing the door, Sasuke did not care at all about the main family's move.

With his current strength and status, he could not even stick half a finger into this lousy mess.

Rather than waste time on that, he might as well sharpen his own skills first.

He sat down cross-legged and began refining chakra.

The Top-Tier Chakra Refining Technique started circulating inside his body, and Sasuke soon entered a meditative state.

Inside his broad meridians, chakra squeezed out from his cells poured in without end.

From the tiny trickle at the very beginning, it slowly filled the entire channel.

Chakra began flowing through his whole body. "If I use the nature transformation of Lightning Style chakra to stimulate my cells at this point, will it be faster?"

Feeling the chakra surging through his meridians, a bold idea suddenly popped into Sasuke's mind.

Once the thought came, he acted on it.

Sasuke formed a hand seal, directly twisted his chakra into a Lightning Style state, and began fiercely stimulating his own cells.

Inside his body, new chakra kept being born.

The moment it appeared, it was transformed, then continued stimulating his cells.

The Top-Tier Chakra Refining Technique seemed to have been provoked, and its refining speed shot upward along with it.

The mission progress bar also jumped to 1/1000 at that moment. "Grrr—"

After only an hour of training, all the energy he had just swallowed had been wrung dry.

A violent growl came from his stomach, and Sasuke could only stop. "I'm hungry again..."

"I'll go find Mom!"

Sasuke stood up and walked out of the room.

Unlike Fugaku's two completely different faces toward Itachi and Sasuke, Mikoto's love for her sons was much fairer.

In fact, because Fugaku usually kept all his attention on Itachi, Mikoto took even more care of Sasuke instead.

Basically, whatever Sasuke wanted, she agreed to it. "Mom, I'm hungry."

"Can you make me something else to eat?"

Sasuke sidled up to his mother, looking a little embarrassed.

After all, mealtime had only passed a little over an hour ago. "All right."

Mikoto agreed with a smile.

Children got hungry quickly. That was normal...

But it did not take long before Mikoto stopped thinking so.

By midnight, she even began muttering to herself, wondering if something was wrong with Sasuke's body.

From the afternoon until now, he had actually eaten six full meals!

The key was that every single time, he wiped everything clean.

Mikoto began feeling uneasy.

If not for the fact that Sasuke was still bouncing around full of life, she would have wanted to find a medical ninja to take a look at him.

Still, she told Fugaku about it.

Just like that, two days passed in turmoil.

On the training ground—

Uchiha Fugaku stood at the edge of the training ground, staring at his younger son, who was sweating buckets.

The matter of the clan's relocation had been giving him a splitting headache these past few days, and he had never found the time to check on Sasuke's progress. In the end, this brat ate several people's worth of food in one meal, and he had kept doing it for several days straight. This situation was not quite right. Could something be wrong with his body?

"Dad."

Sasuke was not surprised by his old man's appearance. He was his father, after all. It was perfectly normal for him to come watch him train.

The focus of his training today was adapting to the strength that had soared during this period. Cultivation was not only about grinding away at new moves. Fully digesting the abilities he had gained was just as important.

After finishing the taijutsu portion, Sasuke walked up to Uchiha Fugaku. "Your movements are pretty sharp."

"Use a ninjutsu and let me see."

"Let me see how much you've improved these days."

Uchiha Fugaku crossed his arms over his chest, his expression held tightly in place. Sasuke had long since grown used to this low, heavy tone of speech. "Understood, Dad."

Sasuke nodded.

As the young master of the Uchiha family, of course he had already touched ninjutsu before. The clan's signature specialty—Fire Style: burn-them-to-death... no, Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique.

Snake, Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse, Tiger.

Sasuke's fingers flew through a string of seals. The speed was not exactly fast, but the movements were clean and crisp. The chakra hidden inside his body also became active, rushing along his meridians. "Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"

Once the final Tiger seal was formed, the chakra inside Sasuke's body grew so hot it seemed about to ignite. The next second, that scorching heat burst violently out of his mouth.

A thin stream of flame sprayed out, then expanded into a giant fireball.

Its diameter was at least ten meters!

A wave of heat exploded outward with a whoosh, and several training dummies placed opposite him were directly roasted into ash. "This..."

Uchiha Fugaku's crossed arms suddenly tightened.

His pupils shook wildly like an earthquake.

The size of this fireball, its destructive power, and even how long it burned were almost catching up to his current level. Even the Great Fireball Itachi usually produced during training was, at most, eight meters wide!

The problem was that his younger son, Sasuke, had only just turned five!

Itachi at five years old...

At this thought, Uchiha Fugaku gently shook his head. But the fire in his eyes burned even brighter.

He truly had not expected that his younger son had not only developed a bigger appetite, but even this talent...

"Boom!"

While Uchiha Fugaku was still in shock, the Great Fireball on the ground suddenly exploded apart.

The massive fireball collapsed, revealing a large pit in the ground. Black smoke still rose from the edge of the pit, and the air had been roasted until it warped and twisted. Just looking at it was enough to imagine how terrifying that temperature was.

Another surprise.

From the looks of it, some strange change had indeed happened to Sasuke's body.

And it was a change in a good direction.

At a time when the clan's relocation was irritating everyone, such good news had suddenly appeared. Uchiha Fugaku felt indescribably comfortable inside.

As for this boy being able to eat... was that even a problem?

"Not bad."

"From now on, tell your mother whatever you want to eat..."

"No, that's not right. We should hire someone specifically to cook. I'll handle this."

"Keep training."

A smile hung at the corner of Uchiha Fugaku's mouth as he opened his mouth to praise him. He even took the initiative to bring up giving Sasuke extra meals. "Thank you, Dad..."

A smile also appeared on Sasuke's face.

That was right. This was exactly the result he wanted. He had deliberately performed like this today in order to completely solve his food problem.

Uchiha Sasuke was almost going mad from hunger.

These past few days, just to get a hot bite to eat, he had wracked his brains every day for excuses to coax his mother into cooking. Thanks to him, the dishes on the table had grown more lavish one after another.

Fugaku nodded and turned to leave.

Once he was gone, Sasuke continued focusing on adapting to this body that had suddenly grown stronger. If he did not first figure out his current strength, he would not touch the next step of training at all.

If you bit off more than you could chew, you would choke.

At his age, when it was time to be steady, he had to be steady.

The morning passed in the blink of an eye. "Young Master Sasuke, this is the lunch prepared for you."

"I'll deliver another serving every two hours."

A woman about the same age as Mikoto walked into the training ground carrying a food box.

There really was nothing to criticize about Fugaku's efficiency.

Three days later, the day came for the entire Uchiha Clan to relocate.

As for the new place, Hiruzen Sarutobi had been quite considerate. He had even built the general outline ahead of time. Once he put on this Hokage posture, those villagers whose brains did not work too well immediately shouted that the Hokage was wise.

But everyone in the Uchiha knew clearly—this was plainly driving them to hurry up and get out.

Today, for most members of the Uchiha, was the most humiliating day for the entire clan.

Along the road, there were twice as many people watching the excitement from the roadside as usual.

Every now and then, a few pieces of gossip drifted over.

A few hot-tempered Uchiha clansmen would have charged up to beat people long ago if Fugaku and several clan members who could hold the situation down had not been suppressing them.

A clan that valued its face more than its life was actually being forced to move today.

Humiliation sat right on their foreheads, and they still had to listen to others wagging their tongues.

They could not swallow this anger. Many of the Uchiha had already begun hating this village in their hearts.

Sasuke, however, did not care. He walked forward mixed in with the crowd.

He could not really be said to have any feelings for the Uchiha.

Others pointing and whispering would be even less likely to affect him, a transmigrator. Getting serious with a bunch of villagers who followed the crowd was pure stupidity.

As for the Uchiha... there were not many good people among them either.

Either their eyes were on top of their heads, or they relied on their abilities to throw their weight around.

But saying this now was useless. At least he was still the clan leader's son, and when it came to meals, things were truly not bad.

If the clan were wiped out one day, where would he find such good days of eating and drinking for free?

He still had to think of a way... to keep the Uchiha from being exterminated.

Just as he was thinking, a commotion suddenly broke out ahead.

A figure came stumbling and charging over. "Idiots—come chase me already!"

"You really think you can catch me?"

A child was carrying a paint bucket, and the three whisker marks on his face were especially striking.

Konoha's greatest unlucky wretch, the Child of Destiny—Naruto Uzumaki.

He ran forward with a smug look on his face, while the two adults behind him were so angry their faces had turned green. That bucket of paint had clearly been splashed onto them. "I really don't know what Lord Hokage is thinking. A demon fox like that should be killed. Why keep him in the village?"

"Lord Hokage is just soft-hearted. If it were another village, he'd have been killed long ago, right?"

"Forget it, I'm not chasing him. I don't want to get stained with that demon fox's bad luck. If I catch up, I might end up unlucky for the rest of my life."

After the two middle-aged men finished speaking, they turned and left, too lazy to keep chasing him. Once the "pursuers" scattered, Naruto also stopped.

The village's excitement had only just shifted to the Uchiha relocation, but before long, the wind changed again.

Everyone's mouths turned in the same direction.

[Demon fox brat]!

"What terrible luck. Why do we run into that thing wherever we go?"

"Mom, who is that? Why are all of you avoiding him?"

"That's the demon fox, the monster that brought disaster to the village. Don't look at him, or he might swallow you!"

"A scourge like that, who nearly destroyed the village, should be driven out!"

Words more venomous than the last smashed into that five-year-old child's ears.

On the Uchiha Clan's side, the reaction was even harsher.

In the end, the root cause of the whole clan moving outward today was that incident caused by the Nine-Tails.

Naturally, the Uchiha found Naruto displeasing in every possible way.

The little bit of smugness on Naruto's face vanished completely.

He had finally gotten people to pay attention to him, but now he could not say a single word.

He raised his head, just about to fling the paint bucket out and then bolt.

In the end, he met a pair of eyes.

It was a child about the same age as him, standing in the Uchiha group.

Uchiha...

Naruto remembered that surname very clearly.

The Konoha Police Force held a whole heap of authority in its hands.

Most importantly, not a single person in that family liked him.

Last time, when he had caused trouble and been caught and taken into the Police Force, he had received a fierce scolding.

Every Uchiha looked at him with disgust written in their eyes.

But this half-grown child in front of him was staring at him with a pair of bright, clear eyes.

It was only a few seconds before Sasuke followed the group and walked away.

Naruto smashed the paint bucket into the crowd, and then he also darted away and vanished.

Only after the family had moved to the new place did Sasuke understand why the clansmen were so furious.

This place was almost pressed up against the village wall.

This was clearly meant to kick the Uchiha completely out of the village's circle of power.

More than half the clansmen were still cursing, their bellies full of anger with nowhere to vent it.

A small portion of the clansmen had gazes as cold as knives; they were clearly plotting something else in their hearts.

There were also those like Shisui Uchiha, who secretly let out a breath of relief...

The oddest one of all was Sasuke.

The moment he arrived at the new house, he began stuffing himself with food and drink... even within the Uchiha Clan, he counted as an outlier.

That evening, after Uchiha Fugaku finished dinner, he left the courtyard.

Itachi followed him out as well.

Sasuke understood in his heart that they were going to pacify the clansmen, and also handle some matters that could not see the light of day.

However, those things had nothing to do with him right now.

Besides, he knew how the original story went. With Shisui around, they would not start fighting anytime soon.

After returning to his room, Sasuke continued mobilizing the nature transformation of his Lightning Release chakra to temper his cells.

Before long, he stopped. "My body... already can't hold out?"

He spread his hands, a trace of helplessness appearing on his face.

In the end, he was only five years old right now.