Chapter 21: Blocking One's Own Path
And so, Stelle officially entered the Ninja Academy under the prestigious identity of Uchiha Madara's disciple, beginning a new daily routine: farming emotional points from her designated group of six academy peers.
Meanwhile, Uchiha Madara discovered a new and surprisingly enjoyable pastime: teaching his student. He was relentless. His philosophy was simple: as long as the training didn't kill her, he would push her to the absolute brink of her life. During their sparring sessions, he offered no quarter, striking and throwing her with the full force expected of a master.
Stelle frequently ended their sessions covered in a mix of black and blue, her head spinning and muscles screaming in protest. If she weren't an adult soul inhabiting a child's body, the sheer brutality of it would have reduced her to tears countless times over.
Of course, this "tough love" approach was brutally effective. It provided the perfect cover for her to unveil her true strength, piece by painstaking piece.
During Taijutsu practice at the academy, she initially feigned the clumsiness of a newcomer to the ninja world, her strength decidedly average. But as time passed, she began to "improve," climbing from the middle of the pack and methodically defeating one opponent after another until she finally stood among the elite students.
This hard-won prowess earned her the grudging respect of the top talents in her year, Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo Shimura. At last, she was in a position to interact with them, allowing her to harvest a steady, if small, stream of daily mood values.
On another front, Uchiha Kagami had become Uchiha Izuna's disciple. Because Stelle was Madara's student, Kagami treated her with exceptional care and consideration, which in turn provided another reliable source of points.
But this life—a constant, careful calculation of emotions, scraping together mood values bit by bit—was slowly driving her mad. In moments of frustration, she found herself missing the one she called the Crown Prince more than ever.
'Sigh. System, today is another day where I desperately want to kickstart the Fourth Great Ninja War,'she lamented internally.'Why on earth did I have to transmigrate to the Warring States Period?'
[Keep it up, Host,] the system replied, its tone unfeelingly cheerful. [You now have ten individuals you can consistently farm. This is a significant improvement over your time in the Warring States. You will definitely survive to see the Fourth Great Ninja War.]
After yet another particularly grueling "lesson" from Madara, the young girl couldn't take it anymore and stormed into the Hokage Building to lodge a formal complaint.
"He actually used the Uchiha's signature combat style to beat me senseless! Then he chased me around with the Great Fireball Technique! If I had run any slower, I would have been roasted alive!"
The three men present—Hashirama, Tobirama, and Izuna—looked at her singed, curled hair and her bruised face, and failed to suppress their laughter.
"Madara really is exceptionally strict," Hashirama said, his voice full of mirth. "If you don't want him to teach you, I could also..."
"No way!" Stelle interrupted, slamming a small fist on the desk for emphasis. "I chose this master myself! I'll see this training through, even if I have to crawl to the finish line on my knees! Just you wait. Sooner or later, I'll be the one knocking my master to the ground."
The very next day, a scene unfolded during Stelle's practice of the Great Fireball Technique that left even Uchiha Madara stunned.
Normally, the flames shinobi breathed were a familiar, fiery red.
But today, the fire that erupted from his disciple's mouth was a deep, menacing purple. Though it was only a small orb, one could feel its terrifying lethality the instant it materialized—an oppressive heat, a raw power, and an aura of pure destruction that dwarfed ordinary fire.
And so, the four founding figures of the village gathered once again, this time to watch a young girl spit purple flames. They each took a turn examining the strange phenomenon, their expressions a mixture of awe and scientific curiosity. The consensus was clear: it had to be an incredibly rare Kekkei Genkai.
With this discovery, Uchiha Madara's training regimen for Stelle became even more hellish. Senju Tobirama, who had fully embraced his inner mad scientist, would often stand by during their sessions, carefully studying the properties of this new type of flame.
This was, in fact, Stelle's latest self-developed gambit. The system had granted her the perfect body and an unmatched mind; how could she possibly content herself with ordinary ninjutsu? Such mediocrity would be an insult to her status as a "cheater." It just so happened that while attempting to manifest the legendary black flames of Amaterasu, she had accidentally produced these purple ones instead.
Stelle had since refined and improved this anomaly, giving it a suitably grand, if somewhat cliché, name—Flame Release.
With this powerful new nature transformation in her arsenal, her strength skyrocketed. She decisively defeated both Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo Shimura, cementing her place at the top of their generation.
Naturally, the two proud young shinobi refused to accept this. They challenged her again and again in private, only to be soundly defeated every single time. What was most infuriating for them was that in the beginning, they could at least see a glimmer of hope, a path to victory. But the more they fought her, the wider the chasm between their abilities seemed to grow.
For the first time in their lives, Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo Shimura truly understood what it felt like to be utterly crushed by a genius.
"How can a girl like Stelle be such a monster?" Hiruzen grumbled, nursing a bruised ego. "Her punches hurt way too much."
"Yeah," Danzo agreed, rubbing his jaw. "Is she even a girl? I feel like one of her casual punches could crack a man's skull open."
With the two great gods of the era, Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara, overseeing the ninja world, a period of unmatched peace settled over the land. Konoha was in a constant state of reform and development, a thriving hub of prosperity. The surrounding hidden villages were so busy trying to emulate Konoha's model that they had no time or energy to even consider starting a war.
Stelle grew up steadily in this tranquil environment and, in time, graduated from the Ninja Academy.
However, before she could even be assigned to a team with Hiruzen and the others, Uchiha Madara personally reassigned her to the Hokage Building to serve as his assistant.
That's right. Senju Hashirama had successfully shirked his duties, passing the Hokage's hat to Uchiha Madara.
Konoha now had its Second Hokage.
Stelle was rendered speechless.
"Teacher," she asked weakly, "can I say no?" She had only helped him solve one minor administrative problem as a fluke. How had she ended up in his crosshairs again?
"No!" Having become Hokage, Madara found the endless paperwork to be an absolute nightmare. He desperately needed help. Exploiting his younger brother alone wasn't enough. Recalling that his disciple seemed to have a knack for this sort of thing, he had decided on the spot to exploit her instead.
As for her lack of mission experience...
"Don't worry," Madara "comforted" her, his tone leaving no room for argument. "I will personally teach you everything you need to know about combat. In this entire ninja world, when it comes to battle experience, no one is my superior except for Hashirama."
In that moment, Stelle felt a powerful urge to drop an ultimate, 'Master-Slaying' jutsu right on his head.
And what was the retired First Hokage doing? He had found an even more interesting project: leading teams of ninja to reclaim wasteland for agriculture.
Economic development was impossible without a strong agricultural base, and relying on ordinary villagers was far too slow. So, Senju Hashirama simply took a legion of Earth and Water Release users and began terraforming the land himself. Earth Release to till the fields, Water Release to irrigate—the process saved an immense amount of development time.
Although ninja were typically arrogant, who would dare object when Lord First Hokage was leading the charge? Besides, after tilling so much land and pumping so much water, they found that their own abilities had improved. Their ninjutsu execution became smoother, their hand seal speed increased, and they even began developing new combination jutsu. For a time, the ninja of Konoha found that farming wasn't so bad after all.
Senju Tobirama remained sequestered in his laboratory, researching the genetic improvement of various seeds, melons, and fruits.
Uchiha Izuna was put in charge of supervising the construction of new roads.
If he hadn't been forced to stay in the Hokage Building, Uchiha Madara would have slipped away to join them long ago.
'Good grief,'Stelle complained bitterly in her heart.'Hashirama is farming, Tobirama is cross-breeding vegetables, and Izuna is a foreman. How disgustingly harmonious.'She had only written a tiny fraction of Konoha's development plan back then. Was the butterfly effect really this powerful? Stelle simply couldn't believe the ninja world was heading in such a peaceful, heartwarming direction. At this point, she wouldn't even be surprised if Danzo announced he was going to raise pigs.'It's over. It's all over,'she fretted.'I played the last scenario too well and completely derailed the plot. At this rate, forget starting the Fourth War, the First War isn't even on the horizon! The ninja world is at peace, everyone is happy, but I'm going to die! Didn't I just dig my own grave?'
Stelle was growing frantic. In her years in Konoha, the number of people she could farm points from had grown—her six academy peers and the four village founders—but the total she earned from all ten was less than what she used to get during the chaos of the Warring States.
It was just too peaceful. The greatest suffering anyone endured was getting beaten up by the four powerhouses. With two legendary spymasters and two god-tier warriors supporting the world for Konoha, everyone else just had to grow up happily. The four founders were obsessed with their real-life city-building game, leaving her to farm meager daily points. As for her peers, their biggest daily annoyance was wondering why they could never catch up to her, no matter how hard they tried.
But even beating people up became numbing after a while.
'It's all my fault. I got too into character and gave the NPCs too much information, blocking my own path forward. Hashirama will never agree to a war now. Unless he and Madara die of old age, there won't be any major conflicts in this world.'
And by the time they died of old age, she would have long since faded away.
[How about the Host lets this alias go offline?] the system suggested. [You could go to another country and stir up trouble. For example, join the Land of Wind, help them fix their desert, and set yourself up as Konoha's rival. The Land of Earth could also work; their shinobi are quite interesting.]
Stelle considered it, then immediately refused.
'No. How many named characters are even in the Land of Earth right now? I wouldn't even make back my daily upkeep costs. This isn't the Crown Prince's era yet; it's even worse than Konoha. Speaking of which, where is that master schemer, Black Zetsu? Doesn't he want to save his mom anymore? If he keeps slacking off like this, how is he ever going to revive her?'
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