Taking Izuna to See the Ninja Academy

"Exactly. Even you think it's possible there were descendants. Besides, Sasuke and I inherited our looks from our mother's side. My mother looked like this, and my father looked like this..."

A Luo shaped spiritual energy into threads, sketching Mikoto Uchiha's appearance before blurring it away and drawing Fugaku Uchiha instead.

It was obvious at a glance which parent the two brothers had taken after.

"A Luo, do you hate them?"

Izuna saw what the couple looked like, but that was not what concerned him.

Resting a hand on A Luo's head, he finally asked the question that had been troubling him since yesterday.

The child had been imprisoned in a small courtyard since he was young and had never been allowed outside. The first time he left that courtyard was when his parents told him not to resist as he went to his death...

Under such circumstances, it was already remarkable that the child had not suffered a mental breakdown.

"I don't. Hatred consumes your energy and willpower. I don't need to waste either on them."

A Luo shook his head. He truly did not feel resentment or anything of the sort.

He was selfish. For those who had not protected or cared for him, he considered even the slightest emotional reaction a waste.

"Not even hatred..."

Izuna looked at the child's expression and listened to his words, yet he did not believe it was really that simple.

To say that even hatred was a waste—hadn't that conclusion only formed after too much disappointment had piled up?

Or perhaps the child had longed so desperately to see what the outside world was like that some mutation had occurred in his abilities. His spirit body could wander everywhere, so naturally his physical body was unhealthy...

The more Izuna thought about it, the more he felt the child's frailty was caused by such reasons. He picked A Luo up, intending to place him back into that sleeping body.

If talking with him required sacrificing his health, then there was truly no need for them to spend time together like this.

"I don't want to go back yet. Didn't I say I'd take you out for fun? Today, I'll take you to see the academy. Back when the Uchiha Clan was still around, I often floated out like this to watch Sasuke attend class. He used to be really cute. Sometimes, when Big Brother came to pick him up, he wouldn't go home unless he was carried on his back..."

A Luo refused to go back now and tugged Izuna along to take him out. He lied without even needing to prepare a draft.

But as he spoke, he suddenly fell silent.

Big Brother. That was the first title he had uttered while learning to speak during the years before he arrived, when the system had controlled the body in his place.

Though the system had managed the body back then, the memories had still been passed on to him.

Thinking of Itachi Uchiha, who had also been just a child at the time yet stood before their parents and demanded that someone be assigned to care for his little brother, A Luo felt conflicted.

Itachi Uchiha...

Even if, after Shisui Uchiha's death, Itachi Uchiha's actions could be blamed on the influence of Kotoamatsukami, still...

The fact that he had worried about staying behind and becoming a burden to Sasuke was undeniable.

Forget it. There was no need to dwell on this. Having Sasuke was enough!

He did not ask for much. Just having a bit of family affection in this world made him happy.

"Let's go, let's go! I'll take you to see Konoha Ninja Academy!"

A Luo gave himself a brief mental scolding, confirmed that his goal remained clear, then grabbed Izuna's hand and floated straight to the outermost wall of the Uchiha compound.

He skillfully tucked away his soul, floated out of the Uchiha compound with Izuna, passed through Konoha's streets, and drifted into Konoha Ninja Academy.

Sasuke was quietly attending class today—too quietly, in fact. He was visibly struggling to stay awake.

Naruto Uzumaki, seated one empty seat away from Sasuke, was listlessly sprawled across his desk. Even in his sleep, he mumbled a few words about delicious food...

"The children here really have it easy..."

Izuna watched these young students sleep in class, stare into space, and fool around in private. Thinking of what things had been like when he and his brother were children, his feelings became complicated.

Was this the future my brother had hoped for?

"Yeah, they have it easy. I heard that in the past, children could go to war at six. They could learn some taijutsu and ninjutsu. But at the academy now, the only thing they learn before graduation is the Three Body Technique. They can't even get near anything else..."

A Luo floated outside the window and watched Sasuke. He raised a hand and made a patting motion over Sasuke's head, then smiled.

At Izuna's remark, he shook his head and dragged him to this year's graduating class so he could see how strong the students were.

They were twelve years old. In Izuna's era, they should have already been qualified warriors by that age. Yet the students here could not even use the Three Body Technique particularly well.

They were not as much of a mess as Naruto had been in the original plot, but their techniques did not seem particularly useful either. At that hand-sign speed, they would probably be kicked away by an enemy before finishing their seals.

"So what do they learn?"

Izuna watched the graduating students for a while and confirmed that there truly were very few worth noticing.

As an Uchiha who had learned ninjutsu, taijutsu, and killing techniques from childhood, he could not understand how six years of education under teachers' close supervision had produced a group of ninja like this...

Was the point of attending school to send them here to play games?

"There's a lot to learn: book knowledge, combat courses, and the students on the field are practicing throwing weapons. But the most important thing is... the freshmen who enrolled this year are learning it right now. Let's go listen..."

A Luo dragged Izuna away. They floated past the training field, where perhaps one or two throws out of a hundred hit the target, and arrived at the window of a first-year classroom.

As they watched the teacher describe the Third Hokage as the strongest Hokage, A Luo told Izuna to listen carefully. He would probably understand after that.

"The strongest? That perverted old lecher?"

The more Izuna listened, the angrier he became. Was this how the teachers educated their students?

A man who had never gone to the battlefield again after becoming Hokage—where did his strength lie?

Could it be that this era no longer judged strength by actual power?

"His greatest strength is that he's still alive..."

A Luo smiled with innocent sweetness, but the words he spoke became increasingly unfitting for his current age.

Izuna did not find that strange. In their era, A Luo being like this would have been perfectly normal.

"Then someone like him should fear the emergence of geniuses most of all!"

Izuna no longer wanted to watch that classroom where the strongest Hokage was being described so vividly.

With a Hokage like that, it was no wonder the Fourth died so quickly. A single Nine-Tails had killed the strongest fighter of that time, and even taken someone from the Uzumaki family with him...

"Probably. Minato Namikaze and his wife died in the Nine-Tails attack. The White Fang of Konoha died because of rumors. As for the Legendary Sannin of Konoha... one defected and supposedly joined some organization; another left and drifted through casinos; and the last one did learn a little of the essence. He spent all day peeping into women's baths, using the women he had seen naked as material for his writing, and supposedly searching for some Child of Prophecy."

A Luo did not like Konoha and hated the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi. Naturally, he did not like Hiruzen Sarutobi's disciples either.

Orochimaru was all right. This scientist had been clear about his goal from the beginning—he wanted the Uchiha Clan's body—but he had indeed helped Sasuke grow stronger.

Besides, A Luo personally liked scientists.

As for Tsunade, she was from the Senju Clan, which had always been on very unfriendly terms with the Uchiha.

And that perverted sage, Jiraiya...

The Great Toad Sage of Mount Myoboku's Toad Cave had fooled a pair of brothers into killing their mother. Even though the plot had not begun yet, A Luo already hated that place.