Chapter 35

The first thing the parents noticed was not their faces, but the gleaming forehead protectors on their brows.

Kakashi was at the front.

"Your son's really something, Sakumo," Shinku Yuhi praised.

Hatake Sakumo smiled too. "Kurenai's impressive as well."

His gaze fell on Kurenai Yuhi behind Kakashi. The little girl had delicate features, and a brand-new forehead protector was tied around her forehead too.

Xuan Zhe glanced around as well.

Everyone wearing a forehead protector was a familiar face.

Kakashi, Kurenai Yuhi, Rin Nohara, Asuma... Huh? Even those two perennial dead lasts, Obito and Might Guy, had passed.

"Guy! Well done! Your youth wasn't wasted!"

"Dad!"

The father and son in green bodysuits hugged each other tightly. For an instant, everyone present seemed to see the backdrop behind them change from the school to a coastline at sunset.

What a damn eyesore...

"Kakashi, that boy will become your rival someday." Hatake Sakumo walked over to his son, watching the thick-browed father and son with a smile.

"Tch-"

Kakashi curled his lip in displeasure, his lips moving beneath his mask.

Might Guy and Obito Uchiha had both barely scraped through with low scores.

A top graduate like Kakashi, who had earned perfect scores in every subject, did not think much of them at all.

Xuan Zhe noticed that little Kurenai Yuhi was staring fixedly at him with eyes that said, "Praise me, praise me!"

He reached out with both hands, placing one on Kurenai Yuhi's head and the other on Rin Nohara's, and ruffled their hair a couple of times. "Not bad."

"Hehe-"

Kurenai Yuhi blushed, smiling until her eyes curved.

Naturally, Xuan Zhe felt Shinku Yuhi's murderous gaze beside him.

Quite a few kids had failed the graduation exam too.

But Xuan Zhe, a transmigrator, had no recollection of any of them.

They were extras who did not even qualify for names. The author could not be bothered to waste words on them.

"Ooooh!!!"

The crowd suddenly erupted, with "What's going on?" written all over many faces.

There was a little boy with curly black hair who looked only about five.

The kid, wearing a Konoha forehead protector, walked down the steps of the school building.

Shisui-Uchiha.

White Fang had not died, so Kakashi had not set the record for the fastest graduation by enrolling and graduating in the same year, as he had in another world.

Yet someone had gone and broken that record.

"Is that kid from the Uchiha Clan?"

"I heard he's a descendant of Kagami Uchiha?"

"Kagami? The Uchiha who served Lord Second Hokage as a guard alongside those four on the Elders Council?"

"After all these years, is the Uchiha Clan finally producing another genius?"

He had enrolled only a few months ago and applied for graduation at just five years old. That shocked quite a few veteran Jonin present.

His pace was even faster than Xuan Zhe's over twenty years ago, when he had enrolled at five and graduated at six. Even the Sannin could not outdo him.

What made people even more uneasy was his background.

Everyone knew that relations between the Uchiha Clan and the village leadership were strained.

"Look at him. He's much more reliable than you."

Mr. Fifty-Fifty did not forget to take a jab at his old nemesis Runtu, shooting him a mocking sidelong glance.

"You bastard-"

That struck Obito right where it hurt. He grabbed Kakashi by the collar, and the two immediately started trading insults again.

Both belonged to the Uchiha Clan, but one was a genius and the other was dead last.

Wasn't that gap a little too wide?

Xuan Zhe looked Shisui over a couple of times, then stopped paying attention.

This guy was another oddball, much like that hopelessly stupid older brother of his.

Xuan Zhe could not be bothered with him. They were not relatives, anyway.

But although he ignored Shisui, Shisui came over to him instead.

"Long time no see, Mr. Xuan Zhe. I heard Kakashi and the others were applying for early graduation, so I submitted an application along with them."

Shisui wore an honest, guileless smile.

"That road of yours probably won't be so easy."

Xuan Zhe's sinister tone left Shisui feeling a little unnerved.

A bad feeling...

"Shisui Uchiha..."

The Hokage's office, Administration Building.

Hiruzen Sarutobi stared at the extra graduate's file on his desk, feeling rather troubled.

He had already finalized the Genin squad assignments, only for Shisui Uchiha to appear out of nowhere.

His entire team allocation plan had been thrown into disarray.

He had originally intended for the examiner to go harder on the boy and fail him.

Who could have known that this kid's talent for genjutsu was absurdly high?

He had caught the examiner off guard and taken him down with a single genjutsu.

If they still refused to pass him after that, even an idiot would see that something underhanded was going on.

"You look rather troubled, Hiruzen."

Just then, Danzo, his old partner whom he had known for almost half a century, pushed the door open and entered, still wearing that expression as though the whole world owed him money.

"Why not give the boy to me?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi set Shisui Uchiha's graduation application on the desk and said evenly, "Do you think the Uchiha Clan would hand their own genius over to you?"

Since Kagami Uchiha, the clan had not produced another powerful figure capable of commanding respect. Even Kagami himself had died too early to leave much of a mark on Konoha. Now that a promising genius had finally emerged, how could Uchiha Fugaku and his people bear to toss him to Danzo?

"Hiruzen, you're still a little too naive." Danzo gave a cold laugh.

In a head-on fight, he was indeed no match for Hiruzen Sarutobi. But when it came to underhanded methods, Danzo considered himself more than one level above him.

In a classroom at the Ninja Academy.

The students who had passed the early graduation exam had already received their forehead protectors. They were now gathered in the classroom, waiting for their homeroom teacher, Senju Nawaki, to announce the team assignments.

The graduates averaged ten years old. Sitting among them, five-year-old Shisui Uchiha stood out no matter how one looked at him.

"Team One: Might Guy, Genma Shiranui, Ebisu," Nawaki read from the list bearing the Hokage seal.

"Team Two: Kato Shizune, Rin Nohara..."

The moment Obito heard Rin's name, he nearly sprang out of his chair as though it had a spring fitted underneath. He kept chanting inwardly, Me! Me! Me!

"Kurenai Yuhi."

The last name Nawaki announced shattered Obito's final shred of hope.

Still, there was at least a little consolation-Rin's team did not have a single boy, especially not that irritating Kakashi.

"The last team: Kakashi Hatake, Asuma Sarutobi... and Obito Uchiha."

Nawaki's next words sent Obito straight into the abyss.

Obito leaped out of his seat, pointed at Kakashi, and cursed, "Mr. Nawaki! Why do I have to be on the same team as that damn Kakashi?!"

"You think I want to be with a dead last like you?" Kakashi shot back without the slightest courtesy.

"Pairing the top student with the bottom student balances the teams' strength." Nawaki's tone was as flat as though he were reading out a menu, driving another knife into Obito's heart.

"Do your best, Obito."

Rin Nohara, sitting behind him, offered a quiet word of encouragement.

His goddess's consolation was like a spring breeze, instantly sending the lovestruck Obito into full bloom. He sat back down with a blissful expression.

"Um... Mr. Nawaki, what about me?" Shisui pointed at himself, meaning-how had he been left out?

Nawaki looked down at Shisui Uchiha's assignment details and frowned as well. "Your circumstances are rather special. The higher-ups will make separate arrangements. Wait for now."

"All right." Shisui nodded obediently.

Truthfully, he really wanted Xuan Zhe to teach him. That swordsmanship was something he dreamed of having.

After Obito left, the classroom fell quiet.

Shisui sat in a corner, and the more he thought about it, the more something seemed wrong.

Wasn't Lord Xuan Zhe himself just a Genin? Why had he thought that man could become the Anbu leader?

There was something fishy about this arrangement.