Sure enough, you two are the ones truly in love!

Obito stood at the throwing line.

The entire class watched him.

Rin Nohara stood slightly behind him, peeking out a little.

Kakashi stood at the far right of the crowd, one hand in his pocket as he cast an exceedingly perfunctory glance in this direction.

Ye stood at the very back of the crowd with his arms crossed, an exceptionally amiable smile curling his lips.

The wind picked up.

Dust from the Training Ground swept across Obito's goggles.

Obito let out a shout.

He bent his knees slightly, lowered his center of gravity, and assumed the Uchiha Clan's most standard throwing stance.

His right hand shot toward the Ninja Tools pouch at his waist, yanking open the zipper with a rip.

His fingers gripped the scrap-metal Kunai that glinted with an eerie black light.

"Take this!"

Obito snapped his wrist, twisted his waist sharply, and poured all his strength into the throw.

The air itself seemed to tear apart.

The first Kunai flew from his hand with an intensely oppressive shriek through the air.

Immediately afterward, his right hand reached back to his waist twice in succession.

With virtually no pause, he smoothly drew out the remaining two Kunai.

His wrist flicked twice.

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

Three black shadows streaked through the sunlight one after another, carving sharp arcs through the air.

The entire throwing sequence was crisp and clean, completed in one fluid motion.

This chain of moves fully displayed the Uchiha Clan's profound foundation in using Ninja Tools.

"So fast!"

Several civilian freshmen in the front row sucked in sharp breaths and cried out despite themselves.

After throwing the last Kunai, Obito did not even look at the result.

He turned around confidently.

With his left hand on his hip, he casually flung his right hand back, naturally brushed aside the loose hair over his forehead, and added a sideways turn.

It was a standard Uchiha finishing turn, ending in what he considered an exceptionally dashing pose.

His gaze immediately and precisely locked onto Rin Nohara in the group, and a wickedly charming smile rose on his lips.

The instant their eyes met, Obito felt as though pink bubbles were bursting from his very soul.

Pride instantly filled his chest.

Obito frantically calculated in his heart: Even if I didn't get three perfect scores like that show-off Kakashi, hitting two bullseyes from twenty-five meters away is enough to lord it over every other rookie in this class!

Rin will definitely be captivated after seeing that!

Should I go talk to her while the iron's hot?

What should I say to start?

"Hello, Rin. My name's Obito. Those three throws just now weren't bad, right?"

No, that's too lame!

"I usually perform even better than that!"

That won't do either. It's too pretentious!

Just as Obito, his head full of pink bubbles and his face glowing with delight, prepared to receive the cheers—

In midair—

The trajectories of the three Kunai underwent changes that utterly defied the laws of physics.

The first two Kunai abruptly jerked at sharp angles in midair, veering off in absurdly drastic directions.

Whistling through the air, they flew straight toward two entirely unrelated directions.

"Thud! Thud!"

"Squelch!"

Two exceptionally crisp impacts rang out in quick succession.

Hearing the sounds, Obito glanced from the corner of his eye toward the targets twenty-five meters away.

He clearly saw two Kunai planted extremely firmly in the centers of two distant bullseyes.

The upward curve of his lips evolved directly into a broad grin, and he raised his chin slightly.

Yet the Training Ground was deathly silent.

There were no cheers.

There were no gasps of amazement.

The Chunin instructor standing nearby trembled violently all over, his face dark as thunder.

He abruptly raised the grade book in his hand and heavily drew two forceful strokes after Obito's name with his hard pen.

He punched straight through the page.

"Obito Uchiha!"

The Chunin instructor let out a furious roar that echoed across the entire Konoha Training Ground.

"Zero points!"

The entire class remained dead silent.

The smug curve on Obito's face froze completely.

He stood there dumbfounded for two seconds, then suddenly widened his eyes and sprang half a meter into the air like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

His hands flailed wildly through the air as his voice cracked and he loudly protested.

"Zero points?!"

"How can that possibly be zero points? Teacher, did you make a mistake? Where's the fairness in that?!"

"I clearly hit two bullseyes!"

"They're stuck right there! Can't you see those two huge Kunai jammed into the red circles?!"

Obito's face flushed bright red as he pointed at the distant bullseyes and argued loudly.

The Chunin instructor's chest heaved violently with anger. He rolled the grade book into a stiff paper tube and pointed it straight at the targets ahead.

Gritting his teeth, the instructor spat out each word.

"Open your damn eyes and look carefully!"

"You did hit two bullseyes! But they're on the targets next to yours!"

"The one on the left belongs to Asuma Sarutobi! The one on the right is yours!"

"There's nearly ten damn meters between those two targets! You didn't even scrape a splinter off your own designated target!"

Obito's voice cut off abruptly.

The entire class turned in unison toward where the instructor was pointing.

An exceptionally bizarre scene appeared before everyone.

Directly in front of Obito, the third wooden target marked with a red circle was spotless and completely undamaged.

Asuma swallowed, his forehead covered in cold sweat.

When that thing had flown over just now, he had nearly thought he would die on the first day of school.

Fortunately, it had not ended up embedded in him.

All color instantly drained from Obito's face.

He stood there blankly, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

His worldview collapsed with a crash at that moment.

How was this possible?

The force behind those throws had clearly been fine.

Why had those two Kunai turned and flown to someone else's targets ten meters away?!

Ye hid at the very back of the crowd.

He lowered his head, his shoulders shaking violently beyond his control as he bit hard on the inside of his lip.

With tremendous difficulty, he controlled his facial muscles and forcibly held the laughter in his stomach.

The system interface refreshed right on time, and a crisp, pleasant notification exploded in his mind.

[Ding! Guard-Break Points from Obito Uchiha, +888!]

Ye smacked his lips in satisfaction.

Obito's emotional fluctuations were always such a great bargain.

Ye was about to withdraw his gaze when two glittering golden highlighted notifications suddenly popped up in the system backend without warning.

[Ding! Guard-Break Points from Kakashi Hatake, +999!!!]

[Guard-Break Points from Kakashi Hatake, +999!!!]

The dense system notifications directly filled the visual interface.

Every trace of Ye's expression control instantly collapsed.

He abruptly widened his eyes, his mind filled with enormous question marks.

Obito had embarrassed himself. Obito had gotten zero points. Why was Kakashi producing such terrifying Guard-Break Points?!

Although Ye had always suspected that Kakashi and Obito were truly in love, had the bond between those two men already grown this deep?

Hadn't they only known each other for a short time? Love at first sight???

Filled with extreme confusion, Ye swiftly shifted his gaze and locked onto Kakashi's position.

Kakashi still stood at the far right of the crowd, maintaining his signature pose with both hands in his pockets.

His short silver-white hair looked exceptionally stylish in the wind.

He tilted his head up slightly, gazing at the clouds in the sky from a standard forty-five-degree angle.

His bearing was exceptionally aloof and proud, perfectly matching the demeanor of a top genius. He appeared entirely unruffled.

But when Ye's gaze moved downward, he instantly turned to stone.

On the gray pant leg covering Kakashi's left calf, the third Kunai Obito had thrown—

Was now embedded vertically, deeply in the muscle of his calf.

The blade had sunk into flesh, leaving only half the Kunai exposed.

Dark red blood slowly trickled down the fabric of his pant leg, dripping onto the dry soil of the Konoha Training Ground and spreading into a small dark-red stain.

Ye sucked in a sharp breath.

That Kunai, which had flown away in a rising arc and vanished beyond the target area—

Had crossed the crowd on the Training Ground and a great distance on a trajectory that defied every principle of aerodynamics.

It had precisely tracked down and struck the man with the strongest show-off aura in the entire place.