Breaking Up with Kushina at the Start

"Wuye, I... I like you!"

Standing atop the hundred-meter-tall Hokage Rock, he could take in the entirety of Konoha Village, stretching for dozens of miles in every direction.

At that scale, it was more fitting to call it a city than a village.

Hyuga Wuye stood on the Third Hokage's stone likeness, looking down over Konoha with great pleasure.

The scenery was secondary. What really put him in a good mood was standing on that old Third Hokage's head.

But then the girl's voice reached his ears, and his mood plummeted.

He had thought this day would not come so soon. Who would have thought the kid would spill everything after just one year...

Hyuga Wuye withdrew his gaze from Konoha Village and turned to look at the girl beside him, half a head shorter than he was.

She had waist-length crimson hair that fluttered in the breeze, carrying a faint, pleasant fragrance.

Her pale yellow coat was cinched tightly around her body by a black belt, outlining a slender waist.

Black thigh-high stockings covered her knees and accentuated the long, graceful lines of her legs.

She was a very captivating girl.

Hyuga Wuye's gaze returned to her flushed little face.

Her eyes wandered helplessly, and her hands twisted together. She was clearly nervous beyond measure.

"Kushina, you like me?"

His voice was calm.

Kushina secretly raised her eyes, only to meet the boy's bright, piercing gaze head-on.

Like a startled rabbit, she quickly looked away. "I... I..."

Hyuga Wuye said nothing. He merely watched the adorable girl with that same calm gaze.

"I like you! Please go out with me!"

Kushina squeezed her eyes shut, threw back her head, clenched her little fists, and shouted with a flushed face.

For a moment, joy welled up in Hyuga Wuye's heart after hearing that, but it quickly turned bitter.

"I like you too..."

Very much. Very, very much.

He spoke softly, as if afraid of frightening her.

"R-Really?!"

Kushina looked up in delight.

Yet Hyuga Wuye slowly shook his head. "Kushina, I agree to go out with you, but... at the same time, I intend to break up with you right now."

First stage: passive confession achieved.

Second stage: relationship confirmed.

Something resembling bodily feedback entered his mind, making him momentarily dizzy.

"W-What..."

The color drained from Kushina's face, leaving only confusion. "Are you joking?"

Hyuga Wuye came back to himself and looked calm. "No."

"Then... then you don't like me?"

The girl's pretty face turned pale, and tears began to gather in her eyes.

"No." Hyuga Wuye shook his head again. "I like you, so I'm willing to go out with you. But I've also decided to break up with you immediately."

"We've broken up."

He added that last sentence.

Third stage: voluntary breakup achieved. Eye power awakened.

Hyuga Wuye felt a burning sensation in his eyes... Only then did he confirm that awakening eye power after a breakup was actually real.

"You!"

Kushina clenched her little fists, and her crimson hair seemed to burst into blazing flames. "You were playing with me!"

The Ninja Academy's Bloody Habanero was no empty title. Enraged, Kushina punched him squarely in the chest.

Bang.

Amid the dull impact, Hyuga Wuye did not retreat a single step. Instead, he twisted his arm, and with a swish, a kunai appeared in his hand.

A trace of deliberate mockery appeared at the corner of his mouth. "You think that little strength can hurt me? Even if I gave you a kunai, you still couldn't do it."

"You! Bastard!"

Kushina burned with fury. She grabbed the kunai in his hand and viciously stabbed it toward his hand.

A flash of relief crossed Hyuga Wuye's eyes.

But Kushina stopped the kunai halfway.

She had never truly intended to hurt him. Her actions had merely looked frightening.

In that instant, Hyuga Wuye raised his hand and gripped her wrist tightly while lunging forward.

Pfft.

The sharp kunai instantly sank into his chest, tearing through flesh and leaving a diamond-shaped wound that brought extreme pain...

So this was probably how Yahiko did it in the future... It was kind of satisfyingly painful.

Even as pain stimulated his nerves, Hyuga Wuye was thinking all sorts of nonsense.

Injury level: 10%. Cell division accelerated by 100 times. Lifespan consumed: 20 seconds.

"Ah!"

Kushina screamed as she pulled out the kunai. It clattered onto the stone likeness, then slid down, staining the Third Hokage's nose with a touch of red. The sight was rather comical.

Hyuga Wuye actually leaned over to look down. "Falling objects from high places... Hope it doesn't land on someone's head."

Blood stained his clothes red. Kushina burst into tears. "Y-You... what are you doing..."

She stepped forward and grabbed for Hyuga Wuye's wrist anxiously. "Quick! Come with me to the Ninja Hospital!"

But Hyuga Wuye shifted aside to avoid her hand and smiled indifferently. "It'll heal soon. Don't worry."

As he spoke, he pulled open the front of his clothes, revealing the bloody wound on his chest. "Look, the bleeding has already stopped."

Kushina froze and rubbed her eyes in disbelief. "How is that possible?"

If not for the bloody line still left on Hyuga Wuye's chest, she would have almost thought she had fallen under a genjutsu.

"Probably because my cells divide faster," Hyuga Wuye said.

Kushina watched helplessly as the bloody line faded over the next few minutes before gradually disappearing. She could not help asking, "Are there any side effects?"

In her understanding, that sort of healing speed was abnormal.

"Nothing much. It just consumes a little lifespan." Hyuga Wuye pulled his clothes back into place. "The lifespan this wound used up was probably about the same as the time that old Third Hokage takes to smoke a pipeful of tobacco."

"Consumes lifespan..."

Large tears slid from the corners of Kushina's eyes, their salty taste flowing into her mouth.

"Don't cry, don't cry. That little bit of lifespan is nothing." Hyuga Wuye waved a hand. "Lots of people know smoking a cigarette costs them five seconds of life, but they still smoke, right? That old Third Hokage's pipeful is only about twenty seconds... Yeah, it's fine."

Kushina rubbed her eyes, her voice thick with tears. "Why did you do this?!"

Hyuga Wuye paused. "Because I feel guilty."

"Guilty?"

Kushina looked up at him through tear-blurred eyes.

Hyuga Wuye nodded. "I don't like making a relationship official. I only like the ambiguity and fluttering feelings before dating. So even though I like you very much, once you confessed, I couldn't keep this ambiguous relationship with you anymore."

"You only like ambiguity and don't like making things official?" Kushina's eyes widened. "How could you like something like that?"

A smile appeared on Hyuga Wuye's lips. "Kushina, think about this past year. We slowly grew closer, guessed at each other's feelings, secretly hid the stirrings in our hearts, and tossed and turned at night over tiny hints of ambiguity. Wasn't that feeling wonderful?"

As Kushina listened, she clenched her little fists tighter. "So that's why you kept pretending not to understand my hints and stayed neither close nor distant from me... all for ambiguity?!"

"Y-Yes... that's right..."

Hyuga Wuye lowered his head.

"You! You bastard!"

The girl turned away angrily.

Hyuga Wuye instinctively reached out to pull her back, but with a bang, his hand grasped empty air.

A stone appeared where Kushina had been and fell onto the stone likeness, while Kushina herself had moved several steps away from him.

"Don't touch me!"

Kushina looked back at him, her eyes blazing.

Hyuga Wuye scratched his head. "You were so angry that you even used the Body Replacement Technique..."

"Hyuga Wuye, answer me," Kushina said, taking a deep breath. "After breaking up with me, are you going to find someone else to have an ambiguous relationship with?"

Hyuga Wuye lowered the hand that had been scratching his head. His gaze fell once more, fixed on the tips of his shoes.

Information surfaced in his mind again.

Candidates for the next eye-power awakening through breakup: Kaguya Otsutsuki, Konan, Tsunade.

"Yes..."

His low voice drifted in the breeze, making the girl's eyes redden further.

"You're not a good person."

At the moment tears spilled from her eyes again, Kushina jumped from Hokage Rock.

"Careful..."

Hyuga Wuye reached out, but failed to catch even the edge of the girl's clothes.

Then he saw Kushina leap back down beneath Hokage Rock and run crying into the distance.

"This is the Naruto World, yet I actually worried something would happen when she jumped down."

Hyuga Wuye smiled self-mockingly, then slowly crouched down, covered his chest, and teared up. "Ugh... That kunai hurt so much..."

Rather than physical pain, it was more like heartache.

Because over the past year, he had invested no less feeling into this than Kushina had.

Fortunately, he could break up immediately after confirming the relationship. If they had to truly date first and only then break up, that would be absolutely torturous.

It was not as if he had not tried looking for loopholes, but this thing that seemed like a system offered no shortcuts at all.

He had to truly commit, be confessed to by the other person, confirm the relationship, and then propose a breakup to achieve it.

"It feels like a system, but it isn't one. It never issues missions, only passes along information." Hyuga Wuye wiped the corner of his eye with the back of his hand and stood up. "It's like drinking water when I'm thirsty—an instinctive need my body tells me about..."

He fell silent for a moment, then muttered, "How did someone as pure-hearted as me get reborn into the body of such a scumbag? It makes no sense..."

This body had no talent for ninjutsu, no talent for genjutsu, and could not even extract chakra. Its only regenerative ability consumed lifespan.

If not for the bizarre ability to increase eye power through breakups, he might already have gone to apprentice himself to Ichiraku Otsutsuki.

"Since this body's sense of immersion is so strong, I guess I'll reluctantly explore this setting where breaking up awakens eye power..."

He touched his own face. "Only seven years old and already looking like this. Truly worthy of a scumbag's script."

"So... after breaking up with Kushina, I should have awakened it successfully?"

Eye power awakened. Chakra may be used to stimulate eye activation.

The moment Hyuga Wuye thought that, instinctive information entered his mind.

"This body really feels like it was stolen from someone. I need to uncover it slowly." He looked at his hand. "The problem is, I can't even extract chakra. Even if I activate my eyes, how am I supposed to use their power?"

Eye power awakened. The abilities of breakup targets may be analyzed, including bloodline limits.

Use mental power to recall the instant Uzumaki Kushina used the Body Replacement Technique and perform the first analysis.

Hyuga Wuye closed his eyes as instructed and recalled that moment.

To his surprise, his mental power directly outlined Kushina's body. A chakra network, as clear as if he could see through her, emerged within her body.

Then he clearly saw the fusion of Kushina's physical and spiritual energy. Chakra surged forth and, in an instant, was released through the hand seals of the Body Replacement Technique, swapping her body with a stone three meters away.

So this was the principle behind the analyzed Body Replacement Technique?

The instant Hyuga Wuye thought that, his spiritual energy suddenly began circulating in imitation of Kushina's. It combined with physical energy extracted from his cells, gathering into pale blue chakra.

At the same time, he instinctively raised the sword fingers of his left hand upright while his right hand gripped his left index and middle fingers, forming the Rat seal.

Bang!

In the next moment, his mind locked onto a target stone, and his body switched places with it.

"Ah..."

Hyuga Wuye lost his balance and barely managed to steady himself.

"I can actually extract chakra and even used the Body Replacement Technique?!"

He stared at his own hands.

"Is this the miraculous ability that came after awakening eye power?"

"Next, I'll try out the eye technique I awakened."

Excitement appeared on Hyuga Wuye's face. "A dignified Hyuga Clan member without the Byakugan, mocked by my clanmates for it. My day to turn things around has come!"

He eagerly extracted chakra and channeled it through his chakra network toward his eyes.

"Byakugan... activate!"

In this Naruto World before the era of tattoos, having a pair of beautiful eyes was undoubtedly important.

Hyuga Wuye was already imagining himself activating the Tenseigan after breaking up with a few more people and taking on heaven, earth, and the very air itself.

Truly, women only slow down the speed at which I draw my sword!

Huh? Why did the world look a little red?

Hyuga Wuye touched his forehead but found no bulging veins.

The world in his vision was not black and white either, but a very faint red.

An extremely ominous feeling... welled up in his heart...

Whoosh!

Just then, his eyes caught a blurred figure shooting toward him at incredible speed.

The Body Flicker Technique!

Seeing the other party's hooded outfit and animal mask, Hyuga Wuye immediately determined that this was an Anbu ninja.

I can actually see the movement trajectory of an Anbu's Body Flicker Technique?

Why?!

The Byakugan was for reconnaissance; it had no dynamic vision!

"Successfully awakened the one-tomoe Sharingan."

The answer surfaced in his mind... I'm going to die!

"Sharingan!"

At the same time, the Anbu who had appeared before him in an instant cried out in shock, "How could you awaken the Sharingan?!"

Hyuga Wuye nearly cursed out loud.

How the hell would I know why I awakened the Sharingan?!

A branch family member of the Hyuga Clan, awakening the Ping-Pong Clan's Sharingan?!

And an Anbu at the Hokage's side saw it happen?

At that moment, Hyuga Wuye desperately wanted to strangle the Anbu ninja before him... Did you have to show up right now?!