Si - Wei - Shen - Hai - Wu - Yin!
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
In the backyard of Fenghuo's home, Uchiha Obito's cheeks puffed up like two balloons as he frantically blew forward. His face turned blue, his eyes bulged — yet not even a spark appeared.
"Damn it! Why can you do it, but I can't?" Uchiha Obito panted heavily, frustration written all over his face.
Beside him, Fenghuo crossed his arms and chuckled.
"Obito, you can't rush this. First, you need to extract enough chakra. Second, your hand seals aren't right — you messed up the last two. Even if you get those down, you still have to keep practicing nonstop. After all, the Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu is the Uchiha clan's signature ninjutsu. It's not especially hard, but you'll be sorry if you don't respect it."
"Fenghuo, you bastard..." Obito glared at him in frustration.
Just a few days ago, they had both been tied at the bottom of the class — now Fenghuo had suddenly overtaken him. It left Obito feeling out of place and angry.
Fenghuo waved him off cheerfully. "I just spent the time you were chasing Rin practicing."
Obito's face turned red. "Starting today, I'm training with you! I'll catch up and beat you!"
Fenghuo nodded, but said seriously, "Fine by me. But training is boring and repetitive. You have to be prepared mentally."
"Of course! I'm going to be Hokage someday!" Obito shouted with the same fierce energy that Naruto would one day show.
After that, Fenghuo made a triple portion of braised pork for dinner. Besides feeding themselves, he made a serving for Obito's grandmother. Unfortunately, she was too old to chew properly — so Fenghuo and Obito ended up eating everything.
"I'm so full..." Obito groaned, lying on the ground and rubbing his stomach with a dazed, satisfied look.
Fenghuo, feeling energized from the food, glanced at him and immediately kicked him in the side. "No time for resting! Get up, Obito! Training starts now!"
"Huh? Now? But my stomach's still full!" Obito whined, dragging his feet.
"Practicing hand seals won't hurt your digestion." Fenghuo grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back into the yard to continue training.
Fenghuo wasn't slacking off either.
While Obito focused on making standard hand seals one by one, Fenghuo worked on increasing his seal speed.
As the saying goes, there's no harm without comparison. Obito was clumsily practicing while sneaking glances at Fenghuo's smooth, lightning-quick movements, tears welling up in his eyes.
"Fenghuo, when did your sealing speed get so fast — and so precise too?!"
Fenghuo sighed. "Fast? I'm only at about 1.5 seconds per seal."
"Only?!" Obito nearly choked.
Right now, it took him almost three seconds just to form one correct hand seal!
Fenghuo shook his head. "It's faster than you, sure, but my goal isn't to beat you."
Obito felt a chill down his spine and quickly changed the subject with a forced laugh.
"Say, Fenghuo... why have we been practicing just hand seals all afternoon?"
"Obviously!" Fenghuo said seriously.
"If you can't even perform seals properly, how can you hope to execute ninjutsu?"
"This is so boring..." Obito whined, his hands already cramping up.
"Endure it, Obito. Didn't you say you wanted to become Hokage? If you can't handle something this small, how will you ever gain the village's trust?"
Then Fenghuo added mercilessly, "Besides, even if you work hard, you still might not make it."
"Shut up! I will become Hokage! Just you watch!"
Obito gritted his teeth and continued training — for another two hours — until finally, his hands cramped up and he had to stop.
Soon, only Fenghuo remained in the yard, practicing under the evening sky.
"Is it because of my body?"
Fenghuo frowned.
Despite hours of work, his sealing speed was still stuck at around 1.5 seconds per seal.
He remembered — in the future, Uchiha Itachi could complete six seals per second, moving so fast that even Kakashi's Sharingan could barely keep up.
"Patience. No matter how urgent I feel, some things can't be rushed."
After dark, Fenghuo shifted training.
Climbing trees and walking on water — he'd already mastered. So he moved on to kunai and shuriken practice.
His parents, both chunin, kept plenty of weapons at home. The quality was decent, though not exceptional.
Bang! Bang!
His first kunai bounced harmlessly off a tree trunk.
His first shuriken barely grazed the bark.
Fenghuo frowned, picked up the weapons, and kept trying.
Little by little, he found the right technique: adjusting his grip and throwing angle.
Two hours later, he could land a kunai square into the tree.
His shuriken still weren't perfect, but each toss shaved bark from the trunk.
Gradually, he advanced from throwing a single kunai, to two at once, to finally three simultaneously.
His control grew sharper with each throw.
Fenghuo's hands were unusually flexible — he could control the muscles finely, feeling every tiny movement through the weapons.
It was an intoxicating sensation.
Soon, he was hitting targets accurately even when throwing three shuriken at once!
But still... something felt wrong.
"What's missing?" Fenghuo thought, gazing up at the moon and closing his eyes to feel the night breeze.
Suddenly —
He sensed it.
"Someone's watching me."
"It must be because I used Fire Style earlier. But who...?"
"Anbu? Root? The Police Force?"
Feigning exhaustion, Fenghuo yawned, went inside, and turned off the lights.
Outside, hidden in the darkness, a figure with a pair of two-tomoe Sharingan watched his window.
After confirming Fenghuo was asleep, the watcher silently disappeared into the night.
At the Konoha Police Force Headquarters:
"The sealing speed is 1.5 seconds per seal. He can throw three kunai or shuriken at once with reasonable accuracy," Uchiha Yamano, the captain of the Police Force, reviewed the late-night report.
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"Sealing speed... average. But considering he's only six years old — hm, 80 points. Kunai and shuriken skills... decent, but against a true Sharingan, they're child's play."
He shook his head. "It's still too early to tell if he's a true genius. We'll observe a bit longer."
Standing respectfully nearby was Uchiha Fugaku.
"Captain, I believe this child has potential. He's worth cultivating."
Yamano shook his head again. "Fugaku, you must focus your efforts elsewhere. Uchiha Kagami's descendant — Shisui — is already showing extraordinary talent, even at just three years old. That child is truly worth raising."
"I understand, Captain," Fugaku replied solemnly.
"Shisui is yours to train. Do not fail."
"I won't. I'll make sure he lives up to our clan's expectations!"