Several days later, at a training ground in the Leaf Village.
The setting sun burned the clouds on the horizon a dark crimson. Its fading light spilled across the grass of the training ground, stretching two long shadows into the distance.
Uchiha Itachi stood in the center of the grounds, the evening breeze gently stirring his short black hair.
His hands formed hand seals at a speed that hardly seemed possible for a five-year-old, while chakra surged through a set path in his chakra network.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
He drew a deep breath, his throat swelling and his chest expanding to its limit, then forcefully exhaled.
Blazing flames erupted from his mouth and rapidly expanded in midair, forming a massive fireball over two meters in diameter. Trailing a scorching tail of fire, it hurtled toward the distant target.
Boom! The fireball exploded, reducing the wooden target to ash in the flames. Embers swirled upward in the heat, and the smell of burning wood filled the air.
Tianyi stood at the edge of the training ground with his arms folded, the still-burning flames reflected in his white eyes.
His robes fluttered gently in the evening breeze. His gaze rested on that small figure, but his thoughts drifted far away.
The Nine-Tails Incident had only just passed, and undercurrents stirred beneath the Leaf Village's outward calm. After all, the battle had been far too spectacular: an entire forest had vanished, leaving a deep crater behind.
Spies from the various shinobi villages, along with unidentified third-party forces, were secretly investigating how much elite fighting power the village had lost that night.
When they discovered that the Leaf Village's core forces were virtually unscathed, they pulled back their probing feelers.
But pulling back did not mean disappearing. They were merely waiting for