"So..."
"That's pretty much what happened."
"I accidentally blew up the client's bridge..."
Sasuke sat at the dining table, wolfing down the meal Runtu had prepared while recounting his recent experiences.
Especially when he talked about exposing Zabuza's fake death...
His excitement nearly had him standing on the table.
At the end, Sasuke sighed, his tone full of regret.
"Ah, what a shame."
"If I'd known the Dog Clone back then... I definitely wouldn't have blown up that bridge."
"I might've even saved my teammates."
Sasuke lowered his head, feigning sorrow and guilt.
Of course.
Deep down, he had absolute faith in his teammates and teacher.
After all, he clearly remembered Kakashi and the others had been at the very edge of the explosion radius.
If they'd actually been unlucky enough to die...
Sasuke would've definitely run to Kakashi's grave to laugh at him mercilessly.Hearing his foolish little brother blurt out such nonsense, Kaito's lips twitched as he retorted,
"Your Yan State map is a bit too short."
"Huh?" Sasuke's head sprouted a question mark, but wary of Kaito trying to trick him, he cautiously asked,
"What do you mean?"
Seated on the sofa watching TV, Uchiha Hikari naturally took on the role of translator for Uchiha Kaito.
"'When the map is unrolled, the dagger is revealed'—this idiom comes from..."
Upon hearing unfamiliar knowledge, Sasuke immediately pricked up his ears to absorb the teachings of the Sect's revered ancestor.
Hikari had been explaining earnestly at first, but then she remembered that Uchiha Sasuke was an idiot, and her tone abruptly shifted.
"He said you're a dumbass."
Sasuke: ???
Kaito: ???
Not only was Sasuke stunned, even Kaito froze for a few seconds.
Though it wasn't entirely wrong...
But wasn't that a bit too blunt??
Suddenly and inexplicably insulted, Sasuke unexpectedly found it amusing.
He pointed a finger at his own nose and declared,
"Ha, my whole family is dumbasses."
"My entire clan is dumbasses."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Kaito kicked the chair out from under him. Just as Sasuke was about to react, Hikari, still lounging on the sofa, shot him a glance and rewarded him with another Tsukuyomi, sending him crashing to the floor in unconsciousness.
However, this time, Ancestor Hikari's expression was slightly odd.
"Does your brother come here just to scam my Tsukuyomi?"
"No, he's not that clever."
As the two conversed, Sasuke suddenly snapped his eyes open, twisted his body into a spinning kick to stand up, and glared furiously at his brother.
"If you insult me again, I'll really get angry!!"
Sasuke's shout was bold and loud—but three seconds later, Uchiha Kaito and Uchiha Hikari had him tied to the ceiling lamp and thoroughly disciplined.
The sounds were equally loud.
While delivering the punishment, Kaito didn't forget to lecture his reckless little brother.
"You really don't care if you blow yourself up, do you?"
"If Runtu hadn't been there, would you have ended up in the Pure Land??"
Sasuke, stubborn as ever, instantly switched from victim mode to full defiance upon hearing Kaito criticize his accidentally discovered ultimate move.
"You think I had a choice!?"
"I don't even know Dog Clone!"
It was clear just how deep Sasuke's obsession with this Ninjutsu ran—he was still shouting about it now.
Kaito watched the ranting Sasuke with mixed feelings.
"Forget Dog Clone. I'll teach you something better."
Sasuke opened his mouth, about to insist, "I only want to learn Dog Clone," but seeing Kaito's raised hand, he quickly ducked his head.
"Fine..."
After dinner, Kaito took Sasuke and their companion, Uchiha Hikari, to the Cultivation Academy's training grounds.
"Stop being cryptic—what are you actually going to teach me?"
Sasuke rested the Executioner's Blade on his shoulder, speaking nonchalantly while his eyes wandered around the school.
Maybe it was just his imagination...
But he could've sworn someone in one of the classrooms had a hairstyle eerily similar to that Nara Shikamaru he'd met.
Still, Sasuke didn't dwell on it.
After all, Shikamaru's Team 10, based on their mission timeline...
Should've long since returned to the village.
"Daydreaming again!"
Noticing his foolish little brother's vacant stare, Kaito delivered a swift chop to Sasuke's head. Caught off guard, Sasuke winced, tears welling in his eyes from the pain."Take this seriously."
After admonishing his younger brother, Kaito pulled out a kunai from his waist and waved it a few times in front of Sasuke.
The serious expression that had just formed on Sasuke's face instantly fell when he saw Kaito take out a kunai.
"Uchiha Kaito, don't tell me..."
"You're going to teach kunai and shuriken throwing techniques?"
Sasuke's cold tone carried a hint of anger, not because he looked down on Kaito, but mainly because he had learned this thing even earlier than Kaito had.
And when he was learning it...
A certain someone had been lounging lazily in a chair in the yard, leisurely remarking...
'Shuriken and kunai—these things are as useless as the Great Fireball.'
'Even dogs wouldn't bother learning them!'
Now, pulling out a kunai like this—was he just trying to half-ass it?!
"Ahem." Kaito seemed to recall something as well, coughing awkwardly. "It's different."
At these words, Uchiha Hikari, who had been watching from the side, nodded slightly, her expression a bit odd.
"It really is different. If you don't like it, you don't have to learn it."
"I'll learn it!!"
Kaito's Sword Control Technique had already been modified with Orochimaru's help into a version compatible with chakra.
Though strictly speaking, after the modifications, the Sword Control Technique had essentially become an object-manipulation technique, it could still be quite useful for Sasuke at his current stage.
At the very least, it could help compensate for his combat ability before reaching the Qi Refining Stage.
And besides...
This ninjutsu could give Sasuke's current fighting strength a significant boost.
As Kaito thought this, his gaze shifted to the Executioner's Blade.
He raised his hand and placed a kunai in front of the boy. Before Sasuke could even reach out to take it, he was shocked to discover—
The kunai was... floating?!
Sasuke's first instinct was to wave his hand around the kunai, trying to find any strings or hidden mechanisms attached to it.
But after several minutes, he still couldn't figure out how the thing was hovering motionless in front of him.
Even if there was chakra reacting on the kunai, how the hell was it just floating like that?!
To put it simply...
Sasuke found this phenomenon very un-ninja-like.
"How are you doing this?"
At this moment, the look he gave Kaito was one of pure, unclouded curiosity.
"We're not done yet." Kaito took the Executioner's Blade from his younger brother. "Watch closely, Sasuke!"
"I'm going to teach you the real way to use this blade!"
With that, he gripped the hilt with one hand and the blade with the other, lifting it high before slamming it down onto his raised knee.
Crack—clang!
The sound of metal breaking rang out, and in the next moment, Sasuke saw the Executioner's Blade split into two under Kaito's manipulation.
Not only that, but the tip of the blade shattered into fragments under Kaito's force.
"Kaito! Have you lost your mind?!"
"Why would you destroy a perfectly good blade like that?!"
Sasuke shouted in frustration, but the next second, his eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
Thousands of blade fragments swirled around them, forming a whirlwind of razor-sharp shards in the training ground in the blink of an eye.
But what shocked Sasuke the most was...
The Executioner's Blade, which had just been shattered in Kaito's hands...
Was now completely intact?!
...