The Underestimated

The stir caused by the entrance test lasted only half a day.

By the time they were assigned to classes and seated in their classrooms, Uchiha Ling could still clearly feel the gazes directed at him. The surprise had faded quickly, replaced by a more complicated emotion.

Wariness, suspicion, and barely concealed rejection.

The first-year classroom at the Konoha Ninja Academy was not large. Wooden desks stood in neat rows, and one corner of the training grounds was visible through the windows. The children were still young, yet they had already learned to judge whether someone was worth approaching by their background and strength. The Uchiha clan was conspicuous enough on its own, and the label "unstable chakra" made Ling an outlier among the conspicuous.

"I heard he blew up the ground during the test."

"That wasn't impressive. That was losing control, wasn't it?"

"If he does that in actual combat, who'd dare team up with him?"

Whispers drifted over from the front rows, and no one bothered to keep their voices particularly low. They wanted Ling to hear them.

Ling sat by the window, his expression unchanged as he quietly flipped through the basic textbook on his desk. Much of his past-life memories had already blurred, but he understood one thing clearly: people never truly respected something that was dangerous but out of control. There were only two ways to make others shut up. One was to leave. The other was to become so strong that no one dared judge him again.

He would not choose the former.

Iruka entered with the class roster in hand, youthful traces still lingering on his face. He was not particularly strict with this group of children, but his gaze was steady enough to swiftly quiet the noisy classroom.

"Starting today, you will officially begin your studies at the academy." Iruka swept his gaze over the class, his tone calm. "This is not a place for fooling around. Whether you come from a ninja clan, a civilian family, or any other family, you must all learn the same thing."

"Survive, then grow stronger."

Those words carried more weight than any rule, and the restless atmosphere in the classroom eased somewhat.

Ling raised his eyes and glanced at Iruka.

At least this teacher was not someone who talked nonsense all day.

Once class began, there was no difficult material that day, mostly basic knowledge and chakra concepts. Yet even for the simplest questions, whenever Ling stood to answer, indistinct gazes would follow him from all around. The feeling was familiar, as if everyone was waiting to see when he would "cause another incident."

Partway through the lesson, Iruka had everyone take turns performing the most basic chakra gathering exercise.

One child after another went to the front. Some had weak chakra, while others showed fairly decent control. When it was Ling's turn, the classroom fell silent once again.

He walked to the front, raised his hand, and slowly condensed a wisp of blue chakra in his palm.

It was very stable.

Far more stable than it had been during the entrance test.

Just as some students began to show surprise, the chakra suddenly caved in from within, as though an invisible force had compressed it anew. A faint, muffled sound immediately rang out in the air.

Though it did not explode, Iruka still frowned.

"Continue," he said in a low voice.

Ling offered no explanation. He slowly dispersed the chakra, then turned and returned to his seat.

Someone immediately snickered behind him. "I told you. It's still unstable."

No one noticed that, near the door at the back of the classroom, a boy with a high ponytail and a lazy expression opened his half-lidded eyes slightly.

Nara Shikamaru.

Resting his chin on one hand, he watched Ling's back, a trace of thought beyond his years flickering in his eyes.

That was not simply poor control.

It was more like something inside his body was actively changing the state of his chakra.

"What a drag..." Shikamaru muttered softly, then half-closed his eyes again as if nothing had happened.

During the noon break, Ling went alone to get some water at the end of the corridor. On his way back, he happened to see two boys blocking someone in a corner. Their voices were not loud, but they carried the particular malice of children.

"The Hyuga clan's young lady gets scared that easily?"

"Aren't you supposed to be impressive? Where's your Byakugan?"

The girl trapped against the wall lowered her head, her fingers tightly clutching the hem of her clothes. Her voice was so faint it was nearly inaudible. "P-please, move aside..."

Ling did not stop walking and calmly approached.

The two boys had been about to say more, but when they saw him, their expressions immediately became a little awkward. The incident during the entrance test might not have convinced everyone, but it was enough to make them instinctively wary.

"What are you looking at?" one of them demanded, forcing himself to speak.

Ling merely lifted his eyes and looked at him for a moment.

There was no threat and no anger, but those black eyes were far too cold, like they suppressed an invisible flame. The two boys fell silent for a long time. In the end, they did not dare keep blocking the way and stepped aside with a few muttered curses.

Hinata froze for a moment, then looked up at him, as if she had not expected anyone to stop.

Ling did not say much. He merely said flatly, "Come on."

The girl hurriedly nodded, hugging her books as she followed behind him. Neither of them spoke much all the way back to the classroom door. Before they parted, Hinata seemed to want to say something, but when the words reached her lips, she only softly said, "Thank you."

Her voice was so quiet that it nearly scattered in the wind blowing through the corridor.

Ling glanced at her, nodded in acknowledgment, and returned to his seat.

Yet after he sat down, he could still clearly feel that the gaze from diagonally behind him, which had always been furtive before, began falling on him more frequently.

That gaze was light, so light that it was almost entirely inoffensive, yet it carried a quiet sincerity that was impossible to ignore.

After the afternoon lessons ended, the children left one after another. Ling did not hurry back to the Uchiha clan grounds. Instead, he remained alone at the training field until nightfall pressed down. The feeling of being watched and judged throughout the day did not irritate him. Instead, it made him even more certain that he needed to figure out the abnormality inside his body as soon as possible.

Moonlight fell over the wooden posts and grass, and the surroundings were so quiet that only the wind could be heard.

Ling sat cross-legged and slowly stirred his chakra.

This time, he did not rush to refine it. Instead, he slowed the process as much as possible, letting that power flow from deep within his meridians as though drawing silk from a cocoon. Time passed bit by bit. By the time a thin sheen of sweat had formed on his brow, a needle-like pain suddenly pierced his eyes.

The next moment, the world before him changed.

A faint blue glow floated along the edges of the blades of grass. The surfaces of the wooden posts seemed to have gained a layer of fine, dense patterns. Even when he raised his own hand, he could see traces of chakra slowly flowing through his meridians.

Ling's breathing caught slightly.

He could see chakra.

Not sense it, but truly "see" it.

More accurately, his eyes had, for the first time, captured a glimpse of chakra's structure.

Under the moonlight, the boy sat quietly in the middle of the clearing. Within the depths of his black pupils, extremely fine patterns seemed to flash past.

And he still did not know that this single glance would completely send his fate in another direction.