Short-Blade Fusion Stuns White Fang! Trump Card: Mind-Reading Card Activated!

When Ye heard the words, "Father is preparing his ninja tools before a mission," his heart skipped a beat.

Once the mission began, there would be only a little over ten days before this Konoha hero fell from grace and drew his blade to take his own life.

Without hesitation, Ye reached out and hooked an arm around Kakashi's shoulders.

With his other hand, he casually patted Obito, who was still howling at his zero-point test paper, then kicked Asuma, who was clutching his nose and dry-heaving.

"Come on. It's the first day of vacation anyway. Let's drop by your place. I can ask Uncle Sakumo for some pointers while we're at it."

Kakashi disdainfully shifted his shoulder, but failed to shake him off.

He rolled his eyes in a textbook dead-fish stare, yet ultimately said nothing to chase them away.

The four of them shoved and jostled their way to the Hatake Residence.

From a distance, they saw its plain wooden gate standing open.

Under the eaves, Hatake Sakumo wore a washed-out home kimono, its sleeves casually rolled up.

He held a chipped wooden dipper in his hand and leisurely watered the dwarf pine beneath the porch.

He hummed an off-key tune as the water splashed noisily against the lush green needles.

How could this peaceful, idyllic scene possibly belong to the White Fang of the Leaf, the man who had slaughtered his way across the Shinobi World and left Sasori an orphan?

Hearing them approach, Sakumo looked up.

The moment he saw Kakashi walking at the front, his expression softened.

Then his gaze passed over his son and landed on the three exceptionally bizarre-looking boys behind him.

Sakumo paused in his watering, set down the dipper, and could not suppress the smile at the corners of his mouth.

"You're back."

He looked at Ye, his gentle tone carrying the teasing unique to an elder.

"Ye, you're here again. Our Kakashi certainly hasn't lacked for your 'care' at school."

Sakumo placed heavy emphasis on the word "care."

Kakashi turned away expressionlessly, the tips of his ears visibly reddening.

Sakumo knew perfectly well that Kakashi had once been a troublesome loner, hiding behind the halo of genius.

But ever since Uchiha Ye had pinned him in the mud and beaten him one-handed, the boy had not only stopped demanding early graduation.

Instead, he had learned to face his peers properly and could even tolerate Obito's hyperactive, husky-like temperament.

As an old father, Sakumo was filled with the gratitude of an older generation toward Ye.

Ye swiftly pulled his hand from his pocket, waved both hands repeatedly, and smiled with innocent harmlessness.

"Not at all, not at all. Classmates should help each other."

"Uncle Sakumo, I actually came today because I wanted to ask for some guidance in blade techniques."

Sakumo laughed outright and shook his head.

"They say the swordsmanship of your Uchiha Clan has been passed down for centuries, with techniques vicious and ruthless enough already. Do you still need my guidance? Fine, let's go to the backyard."

Sunlight pierced through the canopy and scattered across the wood chips in the Hatake Family's backyard.

The sturdy wooden training dummy had already been replaced with a brand-new one.

Several wooden swords of different sizes lay across the weapon rack.

Sakumo selected one with a moderate weight and tossed it to Ye, then walked to the edge of the training ground and folded his arms over his chest.

"Come on. Show me what you've got first, so I can see what exactly you need guidance on."

Ye caught the wooden sword one-handed, weighed it in his palm, then suddenly drove off the ground and lowered his body slightly.

The instant he swung, the bones and muscles throughout his body moved in coordination.

His figure flashed like lightning as he brought down the first strike!

A standard Uchiha Cleave!

The blade traced a vicious downward arc, aimed precisely at the joint between the neck and shoulder, carrying the fierce killing intent passed down through generations.

Then the momentum of his blade abruptly changed!

At the very last instant before its force ran out, Ye drew his elbow inward at an extremely strange angle.

The wooden sword instantly changed trajectory and brutally thrust toward the throat of the imaginary wooden dummy!

There were no unnecessary movements, only clean and decisive execution.

This was a straight thrust of the Hatake Style!

Two entirely different killing techniques had been forcibly switched between in the hands of one person.

Though the transition was still somewhat stiff, that killing intent aimed directly at vital points sent chills down everyone's backs.

The spectators immediately erupted.

Obito's mouth fell into an O-shape, while the apple in Asuma's hand dropped to the ground with a thud.

In their eyes, that strike had been fast and ruthless, completely beyond their level!

But Kakashi, standing at the front, suddenly widened his eyes and tightly gripped the seam of his pants.

He knew it too well!

That final thrust was clearly the Hatake Family Short-Blade Technique his father had corrected him on countless times during their nightly sparring sessions!

Ye had only received a few pointers from his father, yet he had forcibly picked apart the techniques behind it.

And he had directly stitched them into the Uchiha framework!

This guy was an outright monstrous patchwork creation!

The ease vanished from Sakumo's face, and his gaze instantly sharpened.

He understood Ye's objective.

Ye wanted to break apart and recombine the Uchiha Clan's cleaving attacks with the Hatake Family's close-range short thrusts.

He wanted to create a new style where every move was lethal and left no room for retreat!

"Kakashi! You three, watch carefully!"

Sakumo shouted lowly as he drew a wooden sword from the weapon rack with a backhanded motion.

He stepped forward, instantly entering Ye's attack range!

"Looking similar isn't enough! The essence of blade techniques is killing, not simple splicing!"

The wooden sword swept toward Ye with a piercing howl of wind.

Three tricky diagonal slashes followed in succession, sealing off every possible retreat!

The force behind them was precisely controlled at the practical-combat threshold of "not enough to kill you, but enough to make you howl in pain."

Sakumo was applying extreme pressure, forcing Ye to expose the flaws in his physical instincts.

Bang!

Ye gripped the hilt tightly with both hands and forcibly received one of Sakumo's slashes.

The impact sent him stumbling back two steps, his palms numb.

Faced with the White Fang of the Leaf's overwhelming superiority, the Uzumaki Constitution within Ye was instantly activated!

Vast vitality surged wildly through his veins.

His torn muscle tissue repaired itself at breakneck speed, and sensation returned to his numb palms in the blink of an eye.

Even his neural reaction speed was forcibly raised to a whole new level!

Crack!

Bang!

Crack!

The two unsharpened wooden swords collided wildly in the backyard, producing harsh, muffled impacts.

Obito swallowed hard. Without activating his Sharingan, he could no longer keep up with the afterimages of Ye's sword swings.

Asuma stood nearby, and merely watching the exchange left him struggling to breathe.

Kakashi remained silent, his gaze locked tightly on the blades in their hands.

The more Sakumo fought, the more alarmed he became.

This six-year-old brat had not only endured his sustained high-pressure assault.

Every time Ye was knocked back and charged in again, the seams between the two blade styles faded a little more!

This kid really was a genius!

The intense sparring continued for a full ten minutes.

Seizing an opening, Sakumo flicked Ye's blade aside, leaped three meters backward of his own accord, and stood still with his sword lowered.

"That's enough for today."

Looking at Ye, Sakumo put away his elder's teasing for the first time and gave him an exceptionally positive evaluation.

"Your path is the right one. To withstand sparring at this intensity, your physical condition is truly remarkable."

"The two styles complement each other. Once mastered, their power will absolutely surpass any single blade technique."

"But you still have a long way to go. Next, you need to simplify the unnecessary movements used to generate force."

Ye planted the wooden sword into the ground.

He raised his sleeve and carelessly wiped the sweat from his face, his eyes bright as he looked at Sakumo.

Even with the Uzumaki Constitution supporting him, he was somewhat tired now.

Still, in less than ten minutes, Ye would probably be back at full strength.

"Thank you for the guidance, Uncle Sakumo! When you come back, I'll definitely have this blade technique figured out!"

"By the way, Kakashi said you're going out on a mission? What kind of mission is it?"

"I want to go outside the village and take missions for commission money too. Staying in the village is so boring."

Sakumo smiled helplessly and glanced at his son.

He returned the wooden sword to the rack, his answer completely airtight.

"Haha, you're still young. Children shouldn't ask too much about adult missions."

"Once you graduate, you'll have more missions than you can ever finish."

At that very instant when Sakumo laughed it off.

The two fingers of Ye's right hand, tucked inside his pocket, silently pinched a card as thin as cicada wings.

Mind-Reading Card!