Soon they reached a clearing.

The five Uchiha officers fanned out among the trees, standing at a polite distance but keeping their eyes sharp on the two in the center.

Even if they weren’t the brightest, none of them were blind.

By now, it was obvious that something unusual was going on between their young captain and this boy with the narrow-eyed smile.

They had been present during that strange encounter in front of the Hokage’s Building two months ago, when she had confronted him with the same intensity.

Later, when they curiously asked, Kiyomi had brushed it off with a stiff face, saying he was just some ‘weakling’ and a ‘coward’ she used to bully back in the Academy, nothing more.

They might have believed her reluctantly at first back then, but obviously not now.

Standing here now, watching him tease her without restraint, watching her bristle and fluster in turn… it was hard to connect that story with what their eyes were seeing.

The boy acted as if this back-and-forth was second nature to him, and their captain, usually proud and unshakable, was letting it happen more or less.

One of the older men frowned, a thought flashing through his mind. ‘I’ll need to report this to Lord Great Elder.’

Another thought the same, only his loyalty bent the other way. ‘This should reach Lord Patriarch.’

The Uchiha were already full of cracks and internal politics, and this was the kind of detail that mattered.

Still, all five of them knew their place.

Whatever they felt about the boy, civilian-born, disrespectful, with that smug smile, they had no authority to interfere in their captain’s personal matters.

And Kiyomi’s origins, her standing as the granddaughter of the Great Elder, and her reputation as the clan’s brightest young talent since Fugaku himself, only made that line even clearer.

If she wanted to deal with a strange, wild boy from outside the clan, then the only ones who could say otherwise were the Patriarch or the Great Elder. Not them.

For now, they stood in silence, their faces calm, but their eyes betraying the storm of unspoken judgments.

Still, all five of them were more or less certain that whatever strange “relationship” their captain had with this wild boy, it had little chance of lasting.

Yes, the Uchiha occasionally brought talented civilians into the clan, but always at the lower ends, matched with ordinary members whose chances of awakening the Sharingan were slim to begin with.

Those marriages were a practical win-win for both the civilian talents and the clan, a way for them to get the Uchiha support and techniques, and a way to strengthen the clan’s numbers and potency without threatening its bloodline core.

But someone like Kiyomi, with her pedigree and her talent, was in an entirely different category.

Her lineage demanded preservation, her Sharingan was already blooming, from a young age, and her future was bound to someone with bloodline potency as close to or preferably equal to her own, if possible.

It was the only path that made sense, the one that safeguarded the clan’s most precious inheritance.

To imagine her throwing that away for a civilian-born boy, no matter how handsome or strange, was unthinkable to them. The clan heads would never allow that to happen.

The clearing fell into silence, broken only by the distant caws of crows.

Kiyomi slid into stance immediately, Sharingan spinning alive in her eyes, two tomoe glowing faintly in the dim light.

Her posture was sharp, disciplined, the same as when they were children—but heavier now, reinforced by the authority of command.

Ryusei stood loosely across from her, sweat still clinging from his earlier training.

His narrow-eyed smile didn’t fade, even as he lifted his hands in a casual guard that looked more like a joke than readiness.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been waiting all this time to finally get even,” he said smoothly, voice carrying just enough mockery to dig under her skin. “You already beat me half a dozen times back in the Academy, didn’t you?”

Her eyes narrowed, heat flickering in her chest. “You were holding back. You never managed to fool me.”

Ryusei tilted his head, that faint curve of lips still in place. “Maybe I just didn’t want to embarrass the clan’s little heiress in front of the class. But if you insist, I suppose I can give you something more memorable this time.”

The policemen bristled at his words, hands tightening into fists, but none dared interrupt.

Kiyomi’s answer came without words.

Her hands snapped, and shuriken whistled out in a dazzling spray, some hidden in arcs of flame from Phoenix Sage Flower Nail Crimson, others tugged by nearly invisible wires.

A few ricocheted at strange angles against one another or nearby stones and terrain, each attack precise, deadly, impossible to predict for anyone without her eyes.

They came in ways and attempted to drown Ryusei in confusion, and cut all escape routes.

She didn’t stop there. In the same breath, her chest expanded and she exhaled the Great Fireball Technique, a searing wall that swallowed the space between them.

Ryusei slipped aside in a blur, the heat licking his face, but the real danger was the steel.

His senses rang as fire chakra-enhanced shuriken closed from every side. He dealt with those easily.

He stomped hard, Shock Step shattering the ground, dirt spraying to disrupt their arcs.

His arms and legs glowed faintly as he layered Flowing Willow Guard, parrying the nearest trickier blades.

His processing speed was not much weaker than one tomoe Sharingan now, after his higher spiritual energy enriched his brain, and his well-trained physique could react in time as well.

She pressed forward, weaving seals in perfect rhythm.

Streams of flame slithered across the earth, Dragon Flame Song, curling after him like hunting snakes.

They twisted around the trees he went inside temporarily, bending in pursuit, and the follow-up came sharp, a roaring Great Dragon Fire that tore through his clone’s counterattack in a blaze of heat.

Ryusei answered with numbers.

Shadow clones burst into being at his sides, each throwing out Coiling Serpent Fists that smashed through the fire streams.

Kiyomi read every twitch of his body, but Ryusei was already moving faster than her body could fully react.

He already used his strongest Body Flicker rush.

His speed was overwhelming, his chakra reserves endless, and every clone was another wall breaking her rhythm.

No matter how many techniques she threw at him, his close to dozen shadow clones would sacrifice themselves to stop the momentum of her attacks, and Ryusei’s chakra still didn’t run out.

Her sword blazed with Fire Chakra Flow, each slash sharp enough to cut stone and burn flesh even on a graze.

Ryusei was getting dangerously close.

The Sharingan tracked him, predicting the next strike, but he crashed into her guard anyway, as she was too slow physically once again.

His hardened forearm slammed against her blade, sparks and heat exploding between them, the clash forcing her back a step.

“Still hiding behind tricks?” He murmured, leaning in close to her head, sweat dripping from his jaw. 

Her cheeks flushed even as she snarled and tried to force him back with another fiery slash.

But the ground cracked beneath her as Ryusei’s Shock Step collapsed her stance.

The real Ryusei was already inside her guard.

His kunai locked her sword down, his knee pinning her side, his chest almost brushing hers.

“You can dance at range all you want,” he said softly, eyes narrowing with that warm, dangerous smile. “But once I’m close… you’re finished.”

His fist tapped beside her jawline, enough force to topple her balance.

Her blade clattered into the dirt as she stumbled back, Sharingan still running, but her composure broken, breath sharp, face burning hotter than her flames.

Ryusei lingered for a moment, gaze steady, before pulling back.

His senses caught something strange.

Her chakra aura was thicker, sharper, almost surging with her emotions. Stronger than two months ago.

He clicked his tongue inwardly. ‘So her Sharingan really is feeding on that tension. Uchiha really are freaks that would grow for no reason – unlike us ‘normal’ people.’

Ryusei studied her closely, even as she struggled to catch her breath.

Judging from the strength she had just shown, from the weight of her chakra aura, mainly spiritual energy, which sensors were best at capturing, she had clearly broken into Low Jonin territory. He thought he understood why.

Maybe it was all those emotions she had buried during his absence these past two months that fueled her growth, making her spiritual energy more potent thanks to her Uchiha bloodline and also fueling her Sharingan, through that optic nerve from the brain, perhaps before another tomoe evolution soon.

Her chakra was throbbing even now, for example, stronger than just seconds before, as if it had only swelled further from their clash.

And yet, the fight itself told him more than her raw level.

He had defeated her faster than expected, almost too fast for someone of her caliber.

Part of it was her own fault, she seemed flustered from the beginning, her focus blurred like a foggy mirror.

Another part of it, Ryusei noted dryly, was that perhaps she didn’t truly want to hurt him.

For example, many of those shuriken had been thrown with precision, yes, but not with killing intent.

It was like a tantrum, flooding him with blades and flame, spamming technique after technique, but without the layered, lethal intent that a real execution demanded.

Almost as if, deep down, she had been holding back against him or unable to strategize properly due to her emotions, causing a brain fog.

Even now, her aura pulsed like a living thing, growing denser with every heartbeat, as if her own emotions were dragging her Sharingan higher, pushing her toward something new at the very moment she lost.

Ryusei sighed faintly to himself again. ‘Uchiha really are freaks.’

Among the Uchiha, the Sharingan’s tomoe often set the baseline of a shinobi’s rank.

With one tomoe, even an inexperienced user could rise to the high-chūnin level.

Two tomoe usually placed them somewhere within the jōnin tier, though with variation depending on skill and age.

A fully awakened three-tomoe Sharingan was almost always regarded as elite jōnin class, their perception and combat potential so overwhelming that only true prodigies or veterans could match them.

Kiyomi had lingered at high-chūnin for a while, but now, with her two tomoe matured and her talent pushing through, she had finally stepped into the low-jōnin bracket despite her age.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep