The "Path of Light" Outside the Juice Shop

Shuo bought the chilled juice he had been longing for, from the same shop as yesterday.

The owner was a plump, kindly middle-aged woman who seemed to remember him. As she handed him the juice, she asked with a smile, "Young man, you're a new face, aren't you? Haven't seen you around much before."

"Yeah, just got back from the front." Shuo took the juice and paid, his tone casual.

"Oh! Thank you for all your hard work!"

The woman's smile grew warmer. "Drink plenty and get those vitamins!"

Shuo nodded, thanked her, unscrewed the cap, and leaned against the trunk of a tree outside the shop, sipping his juice.

The icy sweetness melted on his tongue. Afternoon sunshine filtered through the leaves, its warmth seeping laziness into his very bones.

He narrowed his eyes, watching people come and go along the street.

The sense that the war was over grew stronger by the day. The villagers' faces held less tension and more ease.

Occasionally, ninja squads who knew one another passed by and exchanged nods. Everything was so peaceful... it felt a little unreal.

Just as he reached the halfway point of his juice and started wondering what to have for dinner, a commotion suddenly rose across the street, mixed with a child's crying and an adult's anxious shouts.

Shuo lifted his eyelids a little and looked over.

Across the street stood a little shop selling toys and snacks, with several people gathered outside.

A boy who looked four or five sat on the ground, bawling, still clutching a colorful pinwheel.

Beside him, a young mother tried helplessly to soothe him while anxiously looking up at the shop's eaves.

Following her gaze, he saw a tiny orange kitten trembling at the edge of the eaves. It mewed softly, wanting to jump down but not daring to, looking utterly pitiful.

The eaves were not particularly high, about three or four meters above the ground, but that was dangerous enough for a kitten and the child below.

"Xiaomi! Come down! It's dangerous!" The young mother was frantic.

A helpful middle-aged man among the onlookers tried to find a ladder, but none was immediately available.

Someone suggested ninjutsu, but this was the Shopping District, after all. Using ninjutsu carelessly could easily cause chaos or damage goods.

The kitten seemed frightened by the commotion below and edged a little farther out. Its paws slipped, sending loose grit pattering down and drawing gasps from below.

The young mother's face went white. The little boy cried even harder.

Shuo looked at his half-finished bottle of juice, then at the trembling orange ball of fur on the eaves, and sighed.

What a hassle.

He could have simply kept watching like most people around him and waited for someone else to handle it.

But the child's crying was a little noisy, and if the cat really fell and died or got hurt, the scene would be even uglier. It might even cause more commotion.

Fine, call it... some after-meal exercise?

He tipped his head back and finished the last of his juice, crushed the bottle, and casually tossed it straight into a trash can a few steps away.

Then, while no one was paying attention, he turned slightly sideways and let his now-empty right hand hang naturally, fixing his gaze on the little orange dot on the eaves and the relatively clear patch of ground beneath it.

Not catching the cat. He was not confident he could catch a tiny creature falling at high speed.

His goal was to provide a... "cushion" when the cat fell?

How would that work?

The concept of the "Yata Mirror," newly unlocked and still only hypothetical, suddenly stirred faintly in his mind.

The path of light... refraction... reflection...

He concentrated, not drawing on the pitiful little light energy in his body, but trying to "sense" and "plan."

He imagined a very faint, gentle ray of light shining toward the area beneath the eaves from an angle off to the side, then... at the instant before the cat hit the ground, bending at some angle to form a brief, invisible yet real "slope" or "air cushion."

It sounded far-fetched, and he had little confidence in it himself.

But why not try? It wouldn't cost anything anyway, and if it failed, no one would know he'd done it.

He chose one corner of the neighboring shop's hanging sign as the reflection point for his "hypothetical" light source, tracing an invisible angled line with his gaze between the eaves, the reflection point, and the ground.

Just then, the kitten finally lost its grip. Its paws slipped, and it fell from the edge of the eaves with a startled yowl!

"Ah-!" Gasps rose from below.

The young mother instinctively covered her child's eyes.

Shuo's gaze sharpened for an instant.

There was no golden light, no visible fluctuation of energy.

But when the little orange ball of fur fell to about a meter and a half above the ground, its downward trajectory seemed to... hitch ever so slightly?

It did not stop. It was more like it had brushed against an invisible, elastic membrane, its falling speed and direction changing almost imperceptibly.

Instead of plummeting straight onto the hard stone paving, the kitten fell at a slight angle, landing sideways with a soft thump on a small pile of soft garbage bags filled with fabric scraps and foam that the shop was preparing to throw away.

Although it still tumbled and rolled twice, looking a little dazed, it was clearly unhurt.

It shook its head, quickly got up, shook out its fur, and gave a shaken "meow" before darting into the neighboring alley and disappearing.

The crowd fell silent for a second, then burst into relieved cries.

"Thank goodness! It landed on the garbage bags!"

"What luck!"

"That gave me such a fright..."

The young mother hurriedly picked up her still-sniffling child and repeatedly thanked the people around her, then looked at the pile of life-saving garbage bags, her face full of lingering fear and gratitude.

No one noticed Shuo standing beneath the tree across the street.

Shuo himself blinked, somewhat surprised.

It worked? It seemed... to have had a little effect?

Although most of the credit certainly belonged to those garbage bags, he vaguely sensed that his "hypothetical" intervention really had shifted the kitten's final descent just a tiny bit, lining it up perfectly with the bags.

This "Yata Mirror Hypothesis"... was rather interesting. Not a direct attack or defense, but more like some slight interference with "trajectories" or "phenomena"?

[Ding! In a noncombat, nonemergency situation, you attempted to use a 'conceptual ability' to achieve a 'small but desired' result. This behavior closely matched Kizaru's style of 'occasionally acting on a whim without pursuing grand results.' Imitation points +18!]

[Gained preliminary practical insight into the 'Yata Mirror Hypothesis.' Understanding of this ability increased slightly.]

Nice, nice. Free imitation points, and he'd tested the direction of his new ability along the way.

In a good mood, Shuo straightened up, brushed nonexistent dust from his hands, and prepared to stroll home to continue his research.

He had only taken two steps when a voice called to him from the side.

"Hey, isn't that Shuo?"

Shuo turned and saw three young men wearing Chunin Vests approaching. They looked as though they had just finished shopping too.

The one in front had short brown hair and a somewhat forced smile. Shuo sifted through the original owner's memories and found a vague impression. They had graduated in the same class. His name was... Aoba Yamashiro?

No, Aoba was apparently some future Special Jōnin of Konoha.

This one was called... whatever, it didn't matter.

In any case, the original owner had not been close to him. In fact, because the original owner had been withdrawn-or rather, too lazy to go out and socialize-this bunch seemed to have mocked him several times as "the Uchiha dead last."

"Need something?" Shuo stopped, his expression neutral.

"Heard you came back from the front and even got promoted to Chunin? Not bad!"

The leader came closer, looking Shuo up and down, his tone more mocking than congratulatory. "What, stumble into some easy pickings on the battlefield? Or did your Uchiha Clan pull some strings?"

The two behind him obligingly chuckled.

Shuo looked at him without getting angry. He just found it... boring.

After experiencing the internet of a later era and life and death on the front lines, this kind of low-grade provocation was laughably childish.

"Probably."

Too lazy to argue, Shuo answered offhandedly, "Got lucky."

His dismissive attitude annoyed the other man a little.

The leader narrowed his eyes. "Lucky? I heard you used some weird glowing ninja tool. You didn't steal someone's secret scroll, did you? Don't you Uchiha care most about Kekkei Genkai? What, can't awaken your own eyes, so you've started dabbling in shady tricks?"

That went a little too far, directly targeting his clan and the Sharingan.

A little of the languor faded from Shuo's face. His eyes did not change much, but his gaze settled on the man's face for two seconds.

Then he suddenly pulled his lips into a smile without much warmth, his voice still slow and unhurried:

"Shady tricks..." He repeated the words as though savoring them.

Then he took half a step forward, closing the distance slightly, and addressed the man in a quiet but perfectly clear voice:

"You know?"

"Sometimes, eyes too fixated on the proper path..."

His right hand had risen naturally at some point. The tip of his index finger nearly touched the lead Chunin between the eyebrows, only to stop at the final millimeter.

There was no light, no fluctuation of chakra.

But the instant his fingertip stopped, the man's pupils contracted sharply. He instinctively tried to retreat, only to feel as though the surrounding air had frozen for an instant. An inexplicable chill, as if something extraordinarily sharp and invisible had locked onto him, shot from his tailbone to the top of his head!

"...end up missing what's truly 'fast.'"

After finishing, Shuo casually tapped the man's forehead with his fingertip-truly nothing more than an extremely light physical touch-then withdrew his hand and slipped it back into his pocket.

The lead Chunin stood frozen, a fine layer of cold sweat forming on his forehead. That instant of oppressive pressure had come and gone so quickly that he wondered whether he had imagined it.

But his heart was still pounding wildly.

His two companions behind him were also stunned, not understanding what had happened.

Shuo had already returned to his languid manner, as though nothing had happened.

"I'm off. Going home to sleep." He yawned, skirted the three frozen men, and continued ambling home.

Only after walking a few steps did he toss back a remark, just loudly enough for them to hear:

"Oh, right. A suggestion..."

"Next time you feel like picking a fight..."

"Take a good look first, and see whether the other person really is still half-asleep."

His voice disappeared around the corner.

The three Chunin were left exchanging looks. Their leader's face alternated between red and white, and in the end, he gritted his teeth, not daring to chase after Shuo and make any more threats.

That moment had been far too uncanny.

Far away, at the window of an office in the Hokage Building.

Minato Namikaze withdrew his gaze from the Shopping District, tapping his fingers lightly against the windowsill, a faint, almost imperceptible smile on his lips.

"His use of light... seems to involve more than simple ninja tools."

He murmured to himself, "That sense of interference with a trajectory... though it was so faint it was almost impossible to detect..."

"Uchiha Saku... he's becoming more and more interesting."

He turned and looked at the files piled on his desk.

"It seems it's time to add a little substance to that invitation."

Sunlight streamed through the window, falling on the words "Potential Assessment and Team Assignment Recommendations for Newly Promoted Chunin" on a file cover.

A light pencil circle had been drawn beside the name "Uchiha Saku."