“Enough.”
The fight between Uchiha Obito and Uchiha En ignited in an instant, but before En could even draw his sword, a hand pressed down on it. It was Uchiha Flame.
“Do you want to fight here? Even mischief has its limits!”
The youthful voice held no real intimidation, but Uchiha En shuddered at the sound of his elder sister's anger. His momentum immediately dwindled.
“Ugh!”
Uchiha Obito didn't fear Uchiha Flame, a mere girl. However, having his anger interrupted, he regained some clarity. He looked around and realized many eyes were on them.
Knowing that a family brawl here would mean trouble later, Obito abandoned his plan to duel with Uchiha En.
Besides, even if he wanted to continue, Uchiha Tsukiyomi and Uchiha Flame wouldn't let him.
“Hmph!”
Glowering at Uchiha En, Obito turned and walked away.
“I apologize, Tsukiyomi-sama.”
Ignoring Obito's departure, Uchiha Flame pulled her brother over to Tsukiyomi and apologized to him.
She considered her brother and Obito's near duel in front of outsiders a severe damage to the family's reputation.
“No need to apologize, Flame. You did nothing wrong!”
Tsukiyomi's gaze landed on Uchiha En, who seemed to have realized his mistake. He said to him, “En, never do that again. Words are like blades; used improperly, they become terrible weapons. Obito is our kin; blades cannot pierce family.”
Though he didn’t much care for Obito's future actions, Tsukiyomi usually didn’t mind if others teased Obito a bit.
But En’s behavior this time went too far. Mocking Obito like that in front of outsiders was an act against unity.
Of course, teasing Obito back home was also quite excessive.
Even Tsukiyomi believed that Obito’s later involvement in the Uchiha clan’s destruction, aside from his total corruption at the time, might be influenced by the fact that he was a bottom-of-the-class student who was often shunned and bullied by his clan.
“Yes, sorry, Tsukiyomi-sama!”
Uchiha En bowed his head honestly and admitted his fault: “I won’t do it again.”
“Hmm!”
Tsukiyomi nodded, dropping the matter. Then he looked at Flame and asked them, “Have you found your class? What number is it?”
“Class Three,” Flame answered.
“You two are both in Class Three?”
“Yes!”
Hearing this, Tsukiyomi was a little surprised. He thought it was already a coincidence that he and Uchiha Obito were in the same class, but now even Flame and En, siblings, were together.
Tsukiyomi originally assumed that the ten Uchiha children would be split into ten different classes.
Wasn’t the goal to dilute the concept of the clan?
Keeping members of the same family from forming cliques in their classes seemed like the simplest way to achieve this. But it appeared he’d misjudged the situation.
After all, was such a straightforward, brute-force approach really realistic?
Could separating them into different classes truly dilute the clan concept?
Was switching classes really that difficult?
“Alright, now that you’ve found your class, let’s head to the classroom!”
Having come to a conclusion, Tsukiyomi decided to move on. He led them towards the first-year school building.
As Tsukiyomi and the others left, not far from where they had been standing, Fūma Shoko, watching their retreating figures, couldn’t help but say to Kakashi, “Looks like these will be your classmates. Any thoughts, Kakashi?”
“What thoughts?” Kakashi said, confused.
He knew nothing about them; how could he have any thoughts.
“Really?”
Fūma Shoko glanced at his masked son and smiled. He said, “Then let me give you a reminder.”
“The Uchiha don’t generally have poor talent. You’ve met your match, enjoy your time at the academy, Kakashi.”
Fūma Shoko knew his son's talent was excellent, no, exceptionally good.
But only learning in isolation can produce a frog at the bottom of a well. This is when you need a worthy competitor.
“That dead last kid?” Kakashi asked, a bit incredulously.
“No, the other one.”
Fūma Shoko recalled the gaze he had just seen, it was the gaze of confidence.
“Though, don’t underestimate the other one either. Even if he's the dead last now, that doesn’t mean he’ll stay that way. If you get arrogant and dismiss him now, one day you’ll pay the price,” Fūma Shoko said to his son with a heavy heart.
…
In another direction, someone else was also watching Tsukiyomi and his group.
“Hmph, there are two Uchiha.”
Sarutobi Asma grumbled, his lips twisting in displeasure as he read the names on the plaque.
However, seeing Yuuhi Kurenai next to his name, his discontent dissipated somewhat.
“So handsome!”
Yuuhi Kurenai, the subject of Asma’s muttering, was reminiscing about Tsukiyomi’s side profile she had just seen.
“What?”
Asma was taken aback, hearing Kurenai's words. What did he just hear?
“Oh, I just blurted it out.”
Kurenai blushed, embarrassed that her inner thoughts had escaped her lips.
But…
She turned to look at Asma and thought: Still, that other guy is even more handsome.
Thinking of this, she wanted to know his name as soon as possible. So—
“Asma, let’s go, let’s get to class.”
“Wait, Red, what did you just say?”
Unable to believe his ears, Asma hurriedly followed, continuously asking questions.
…
“Is that the kid in the intelligence reports, the only main-lineage student among this year’s Uchiha, the genius who has already mastered the Body Flicker Technique – Uchiha Tsukiyomi?”
While Asma was indulging in romantic feelings, his older brother, Sarutobi Shinnosuke, was thinking about the intelligence he’d received from ROOT about Uchiha Tsukiyomi.
As the son of Sarutobi Hiruzen and ROOT’s division captain, Shinnosuke naturally had the right to access the intelligence ROOT had gathered about Uchiha Tsukiyomi.
“Just as father anticipated, the Uchiha sent him to the academy.”
Shinnosuke had already decided that he would dispatch personnel to track this person’s performance at the academy once he got back.
………………