Year-end assessment (VII)

The arena was frighteningly quiet.

Everyone stared at Yinglang's open palm. The three shuriken lay there quietly, their edges still stained with a little black ash from the exploding Great Fireball.

Kagami stood there without moving.

The pallor that had risen in his face when his Great Fireball was broken slowly receded, turning into an unnatural flush. His chest heaved violently. His clenched fists cracked, his knuckles white.

The Sharingan... he had it too.

And he'd fucking awakened it at five.

Now he'd pulled out some utterly bizarre shurikenjutsu I'd never even heard of.

Was he playing me?!

Ever since Uchiha Kagami could remember, no one had ever dared play him like this.

He was Kagami Uchiha, Elder Yuanguang's son, the clan's acknowledged genius. He had awakened his eyes at seven, the only one among his peers. Wherever he went, he heard flattery and saw awe. Even his father said he was the future of the Uchiha.

Yet today, right now, this wild brat who had crawled out of some godforsaken corner, who had only been picked up by Elder Xuan, had trampled his pride into the mud in front of everyone.

With one tomoe, with those cheap acting tricks learned from God knew where, with this bullshit "Shadow School Shuriken."

He had played him for a fool.

"Still want to fight, young master Kagami?"

That voice rang out again, carrying a child's clarity, yet without the slightest ripple.

Kagami slowly raised his head and looked at Yinglang.

Yinglang was looking at him too, the single tomoe in his eye turning lazily. His face held little expression, neither smug nor provocative. He just... looked at him. Like he was looking at an item on a shelf with a slightly crooked label.

That look hurt him more than any mockery.

"Yes."

Kagami forced the word from his throat. His voice was terribly hoarse, like sandpaper scraping stone.

He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. Cold air flooded his lungs, unable to suppress the fire burning up from between his bones. His head buzzed, filled with the scenes from moments ago-being led around by the nose, dropping to one knee, his Great Fireball punctured by a few shuriken, and the spectators at the sidelines, whose shock had turned to realization and then to the whispers they could no longer contain.

Trash.

What a disgrace.

And he calls himself a genius?

Those voices, real and imagined, mingled together and burrowed into his head.

Rage. Pure, scalding rage with a bloody sweetness surged from the depths of his heart like magma, instantly drowning the remnants of shock and apprehension. It burned his eyes and made the blood throughout his body roar.

His eyes snapped open!

In his eyes, the tomoe that had been turning slowly suddenly trembled, as though stimulated by his overwhelming fury!

Then, under everyone's incredulous gaze, a dark red halo appeared out of nowhere beside that tomoe. It rapidly condensed, stretched, and spun... becoming a second tomoe!

Two tomoe, one on each side, slowly revolved within Kagami's scarlet pupils, radiating an even more uncanny, colder sense of perception than before.

"T-two tomoe?!"

"My God! Young master Kagami... evolved during battle?!"

"Two tomoe! He's only seven!"

The entire arena erupted. Cries, gasps, and disbelieving murmurs mingled together. Even Tetsu Uchiha abruptly stepped forward, his eyes wide.

Two tomoe! Intense emotional upheaval during battle had stimulated his Sharingan to evolve. That was harder than awakening his eyes through steady progress, and even greater proof of talent and potential! Young master Kagami really was...

Kagami felt the utterly different world within his vision.

Everything had slowed down. No, his perception, his ability to track movement, and even his awareness of chakra flow had all grown far stronger than before! He could even "see" the faint but steady flow of chakra around Yinglang, catch the minute rise and fall of his chest with every breath, and anticipate where his center of gravity might shift next.

Power. A crystal-clear sense of power filled his body again, alongside his rage.

He looked at Yinglang, his newly formed Two-Tomoe Sharingan locking coldly onto him.

"Now," Kagami began, his voice trembling slightly with excitement and fury, yet carrying an unquestionable viciousness, "let me see what tricks those little gimmicks of yours can manage against real power!"

Before he finished speaking, he moved!

With two tomoe enhancing him, his speed had more than doubled! Almost as his voice fell, he became a blurred afterimage, instantly covering several paces and appearing to Yinglang's left! No more probing, no more holding back. With the fingers of his right hand pressed together like a knife, chakra sharp as a blade, he thrust straight at the side of Yinglang's neck! If it landed, torn tendons and broken bones would be getting off lightly!

Cries suddenly rose from the sidelines.

Yinglang's Sharingan-still with only one tomoe-clearly caught Kagami's movements. So fast! He was much faster than before, his trajectory harder to predict. But Yinglang did not panic.

The instant before Kagami's knife-hand struck him, Yinglang's feet seemed to slip, and he tipped to the right, missing it by a hair. At the same time, his left hand swept across his waist, sliding two shuriken into his palm. Without looking, he flicked them at Kagami's chest and face-not a Shadow School technique, just ordinary distracting throws, swift and urgent.

Kagami sneered. Through his two tomoe, the trajectories of those two shuriken were as clear as slow motion. He even had time to tilt his head slightly, letting one skim past his ear, while he casually raised his left hand and flicked the other away with a finger and a "ting."

Meanwhile, his right knife-hand continued without slowing, changing from a thrust to a slash as it pursued Yinglang's tilting body!

Yinglang seemed to lose his balance and toppled backward. A cold glint flashed in Kagami's eyes. An opening! He stepped forward, gathering strength in his left hand, and drove a punch toward Yinglang's wide-open chest.

But just as his fist was about to touch Yinglang's clothes, something suddenly changed!

The shuriken he had just flicked away, which should have flown into the distance, traced an extremely short arc through the air. It somehow made a bizarre turn and shot even faster toward Kagami's unguarded lower back as he lunged forward and punched!

"What?!" Kagami's two tomoe caught this logic-defying sight, but his attention and his center of gravity were entirely focused on the falling Yinglang in front of him and that punch! This attack from his blind spot was too sudden, too devious!

Horrified, he tried to twist around, but his momentum left him no time to evade it completely.

Riiip-!

The shuriken's sharp edge sliced through the training clothes at his waist, drawing a spray of blood. Although it was only a flesh wound, the icy sting and sudden loss of balance made Kagami's movements falter involuntarily.

At that same moment, Yinglang, who had seemed about to fall flat on his back, planted his left palm on the ground just before his body touched it. Astonishing strength burst from his waist and abdomen. Like a taut bow springing loose, he pushed off the ground and scissored his legs around Kagami's forward supporting leg!

Kagami had just been distracted by the attack from behind, his footing unsteady. Caught by this sudden scissor sweep, he immediately lost his balance and hit the ground hard with a thud, sending dust flying.

Yinglang smoothly followed through with a nimble backflip, landing firmly three paces away and dusting off his hands. At his waist, the other shuriken had returned to his fingers at some unknown point and lay there quietly.

At the sidelines, dead silence.

Everyone, including the spectators who had just erupted over Kagami awakening two tomoe, now seemed to have their throats clamped shut, unable to make a sound.

What had they just seen?

Young master Kagami, whose speed and strength had soared after awakening two tomoe, had been distracted by a shuriken that "could turn corners" and then cleanly taken down in a single exchange by Uchiha Yinglang, who was still using only one tomoe?

Kagami lay face down, stunned for two seconds. The sting at his waist, the dust on his face and body, and the incredulous gazes within the dead silence all around him were like countless red-hot needles piercing every inch of his skin.

"Aah-!!!"

"Aah-!!!"

He let out an inhuman growl mingled with fury, humiliation, and collapse, then sprang violently off the ground. The two tomoe in his eyes spun wildly, almost dripping blood! Throwing everything aside, he rapidly formed hand seals, his chakra surging violently-

"Fire Release! Phoenix Flower Fire..."

He was going to kill this brat! He had to!

But he only completed half the seals.

Because, at some unknown point, the cold tip of a shuriken had already come to rest lightly against the skin at the back of his neck.

Very lightly, but the slightest pressure would drive it in.

Every movement Kagami made instantly froze. His hands stopped mid-seal in the air, and his chakra flow cut off abruptly. He could even feel the faint sting of the blade pressing against the skin behind his neck, along with that bone-chilling killing intent.

When?!

He jerked his eyes sideways, desperately trying to look behind him from the corner of his vision.

Half a step behind him, Yinglang had silently appeared at some unknown point. Two fingers of his left hand held a shuriken, its tip resting steadily against the back of Kagami's neck. Yinglang's right hand made a loose grasp toward the distant air.

"Tap."

A soft sound. The shuriken that had just cut his waist and was now flying through the air traced an arc as though pulled by an invisible thread, obediently landing in Yinglang's open right palm.

Two shuriken. One behind his neck, one in a palm.

And from beginning to end, Yinglang seemed to have barely shifted his position. His head remained slightly tilted as he watched Kagami's profile twist with extreme shock and fury, the single tomoe in his eye revolving calmly.

"Young master Kagami," Yinglang began, his voice quiet, yet like a basin of icy water poured over Kagami's blazing fury, carrying clearly across the arena.

"The Sharingan..."

He paused, the corners of his mouth forming a faint curve that nevertheless chilled Kagami all over.

"Can't see behind you."

He tilted his head slightly, as though truly offering a sincere suggestion. His tone held a touch of childish innocence, yet every word struck at the heart:

"You should awaken the Byakugan. Though I suggest you don't, or that would make Elder Yuanguang a cuckold."

"..."

Kagami's mouth hung open, his throat rattling, but he could not force out a single word. The cold at the back of his neck, the words in his ears, and those terrifyingly calm Sharingan right before him, with only one tomoe...

A chill deeper than before, cold to the marrow, mingled with an unprecedented sense of absurdity and despair, suddenly seized his heart.

"Clang."

His hands, suspended mid-seal, dropped limply.

Tetsu Uchiha stared fixedly into the arena, looking at Yinglang holding a shuriken to the back of Kagami's neck, then at Kagami, whose face was ashen, as though all his strength had been drained away in an instant. His Adam's apple bobbed sharply.

He took a deep breath and used every ounce of strength he had to keep his voice from breaking too badly:

"Number seven... wins."

"The ultimate winner of this year-end assessment is-"

"Uchiha Yinglang."