Gua! You'll definitely become an outstanding Uchiha!

After Ye Chuan Dahei, the master mediator, stepped in, Gua and Nohara Fat Tiger shook hands and made peace.

Gua didn't particularly care.

After all, bullying their peers was perfectly normal for Konoha villagers.

You couldn't hold them to overly strict moral standards.

As long as they didn't go around killing people, they were good people.

Gua set a very low bar for Konoha.

Mostly because, unless he lowered his standards, it was hard to stay happy somewhere like Konoha, where eight out of every ten people were troublemakers.

Nohara Fat Tiger was also moved by Gua's sincerity. He declined Gua's apology, declared, "I, Nohara Fat Tiger, am a fucking idiot," and then kept well away from him.

No one around them talked about Gua anymore.

Maybe they were whispering behind his back.

Gua didn't know, and Gua didn't care.

"All right, next, let's try out what I just explained to you!"

Ye Chuan Dahei casually grabbed Gua, who was standing closest to him. "Gua, you go first."

The students around them were utterly silent.

They gave Ye Chuan Dahei strange looks, but none of them made a sound.

Ye Chuan Dahei didn't understand. What's with them? Is it because of Gua?

While Ye Chuan Dahei was still puzzling over it, Gua had already taken the shuriken from his hand.

Without moving from his spot, Gua sent a shuriken flying.

Clang!

A perfect bull's-eye!

It struck dead center, the shuriken set at precisely ninety degrees and perfectly parallel to the ground, as though aligned with a ruler.

At that moment, everyone fell even quieter.

Only the distant chirping of birds remained.

Ye Chuan Dahei looked at Gua standing in front of him, then at the throwing line he had drawn dozens of meters away. Normally, they were supposed to throw from there.

Gua was dozens of meters farther back than the designated throwing line.

And from there, he had scored a perfect bull's-eye.

"Gulp..."

Ye Chuan Dahei swallowed.

"Gua! You learned it after watching just once?"

"What do you mean, sir? You haven't explained how to throw shuriken yet. Did you forget?" someone in the crowd called out, pointing out Ye Chuan Dahei's forgetfulness.

Ye Chuan Dahei froze, then slapped his forehead.

"You're right. I got distracted by what happened between Gua and Fat Tiger. I'm such a careless teacher."

"Then why didn't you remind me?"

Ye Chuan Dahei turned the question back on them.

"Because you called on Gua, sir."

"We wanted to see how Gua would do, too."

"Yeah, exactly."

Ye Chuan Dahei's mouth twitched as he listened to the students eagerly talking over one another.

So that was it?

He felt he had figured out what these little kids were thinking, too. If Gua could get a perfect score without any instruction from his teacher, that could only mean one thing: he had practiced beforehand!

"What a hardworking child."

Looking at Gua's calm face, Ye Chuan Dahei couldn't help praising him.

Teachers all liked geniuses, but even more of them liked hardworking students!

Genius was merely good luck, a gift from the heavens. Hard work, however, was something real that you had to put in yourself.

As Ye Chuan Dahei looked into Gua's eyes, he grew more and more pleased.

Gua: "?"

Gua looked up and met Ye Chuan Dahei's gaze.

Gua said nothing, but Ye Chuan Dahei smiled and gently rested a hand on his head.

"Gua! You'll become the most outstanding Uchiha!"

"Oh."

Gua neither nodded nor shook his head. He simply made a noise to indicate that he had heard.

First, he didn't much like talking. Second, there really was no good way to respond to that.

Their year alone had two other Uchiha, Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Izumi. Shisui Uchiha was three years ahead of them, and there were several other clan members around Gua's age whom he didn't know.

Besides, being an outstanding Uchiha didn't really sound like a good thing.

As far as he knew, the most outstanding Uchiha were Madara Uchiha, Obito Uchiha, Shisui Uchiha, Uchiha Itachi, and Sasuke Uchiha...

On closer inspection, none of them ended well.

Gua just wanted a secure, happy life.

He had a dad, a mom, a home, and his clan.

That was enough.

He didn't want to pursue some lofty ideal like Madara, create a world with only Rin like Obito, or gun down his own mother for peace like Itachi...

But in the Uchiha clan, where lunatics gathered in droves, finding lasting happiness wasn't easy.

I'll have to work harder at idling from now on!

Gua thought to himself.

After witnessing Gua's hard work and praising him, Ye Chuan Dahei began explaining everything from the beginning.

"Shuriken are essential weapons for us ninja. When throwing shuriken, your first priority is accuracy! Everything else is meaningless without it. So how do we improve our accuracy? What comes next is important, so listen carefully..."

Ye Chuan Dahei explained at an unhurried pace.

Gua stood among the crowd, idling away on his own.

One reason he had been able to score a precise bull's-eye from dozens of meters behind the throwing line was that he had been idling his eyesight for a long time. Despite the distance, he could still clearly see the bull's-eye on the target.

That red dot was like an enormous sun. The moment he focused on it, it stood out unmistakably.

Imagine being asked to hit a bird dozens of meters away with a slingshot. Without experience, you might miss. But what if you were asked to hit a mountain instead?

You would surely hit it every single time.

The improvement in his eyesight was obvious and useful, but there was one piece of bad news: it seemed he couldn't unlock the Sharingan through idling.

Eyesight and taijutsu were the two skills he had idled the longest.

It had been nearly forty days, equivalent to about three years of training.

He still hadn't unlocked his one-tomoe Sharingan.

Do I really need a shock to awaken it?

Gua murmured.

Gua turned his gaze toward Itachi beside him.

It seemed he needed to put assassinating Itachi on the agenda as soon as possible.

Itachi, who had been listening to the lesson, seemed to sense something and turned toward him. "Gua?"

Gua nodded to Itachi.

Although he could overpower Itachi in taijutsu, he didn't have any ninjutsu, while Itachi had already learned the Great Fireball Technique.

In other words, his opponent had skills, while all he had was brute strength.

Anyone from Changsha knew that if he failed to finish the job in one strike, Itachi would inevitably counterattack, and he would most likely be in trouble.

Whether Itachi beat him or escaped back to the clan compound, he, Uchiha Gua, would be finished.

Gua understood something that obvious, too.

So Gua felt he should play it safe and take a cautious approach.

"Itachi, could you teach me the Great Fireball Technique?"

Gua asked sincerely.

Itachi blinked. "Of course. But why don't you learn it from your father, Dashan? I might not teach it well enough."

"My dad won't let me learn it," Gua answered honestly.

Itachi smiled, a hint of envy actually appearing in his eyes. After a pause, he said, "Then I'll teach you next week, when we have a day off."

Gua nodded. "Thank you."

Learn your enemy's strengths to use against him.

Gua wouldn't feel guilty. He had to keep the Uchiha alive, and he had to keep his mom and dad alive, too.