The awakening ceremony (scratched out)—after finishing his self-introduction, Kaito Uchiha successfully completed the system's task.
Except...
There was just a tiny little mishap in the process.
"Teacher, I apologize for my son's behavior."
Inside the academy office, Fugaku and Mikoto stood before Mizuki, speaking apologetically.
As Fugaku spoke, he pressed down on both his sons' heads with his hands, forcing them to bow in apology to the teacher.
Worth mentioning—
Fugaku was absolutely furious with his two youngest sons. On the way here with his wife, he had prepared two ropes. Once he took these two troublemakers home...
He planned to hang them from a tree and give them a beating.
It was bad enough that these two brothers had their own issues, but now they were starting to corrupt the other kids.
You have to understand...
Every child in this class was from one of Konoha's ninja clans!
When Fugaku heard from the academy teacher that every kid in the class was shouting "Martial Soul Awakening," he was utterly devastated.
"We're sorry. We promise not to cause any more trouble." x2
Kaito and Sasuke bowed their heads in unison, offering a half-hearted apology to the teacher.
As for why the teacher in front of them wasn't Iruka...
He was outside smoking.
Kaito's mood at the moment was excited, though with a hint of speechlessness.
Because...
This task had been completed only after his mother tied him up with a rope.
It was basically...
A mother's love, binding-style.
The sheer absurdity of it all had truly exceeded Kaito's expectations.
Meanwhile, Sasuke was seething with injustice.
He hadn't done anything wrong, yet he still had to apologize alongside Kaito...
Sasuke glared sideways, his eyes burning with rage, silently blaming Kaito for the beating he was about to receive.
Kaito instantly understood and shot back a threatening look at his foolish little brother...
You wouldn't want Father to find out about you and Naruto, would you?
"Tch!"
Sasuke gritted his teeth, images of Naruto Uzumaki flashing through his mind, his expression twisting into something strange and embarrassed.
"Maybe...""Let them go back and rest for a couple of days first, otherwise... Iruka-senpai would have a real headache."
Mizuki-sensei's gentle smile made Kaito take an extra glance at this named background character.
He genuinely wondered if his Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique could actually harm this guy...
After the office lecture, Fugaku and Mikoto led their two sons back home.
Fugaku was furious, though he didn't actually hang Kaito and Sasuke up for a beating. He just left with the words "No dinner tonight" before storming out.
As their mother, Mikoto couldn't bear to see her sons hungry. While she didn't give them proper meals, she prepared plenty of snacks and pastries instead.
For a moment, Sasuke even thought... the snacks tasted better than regular meals, and an absurd thought crossed his mind—'Wouldn't it be great if it was like this every day?'
"Kaito, I think you should stay away from that blonde girl from now on."
Squatting in a corner of the yard, Sasuke mumbled through a mouthful of dango.
Though his brother had summoned a Shinobi Flower from the sunflower field, such cases were rare.
What if Kaito suddenly got another crazy idea and wanted to try summoning some other Shinobi Flower Summoning Beast? Wouldn't that mean another trip to the flower shop?
How would their family survive like that?
Kaito rolled his eyes at Sasuke.
Look at you...
How dare you lecture me?
When someone here was the one who kissed a blonde right in the classroom.
"She has a name."
"Sasuke, giving people nicknames isn't polite behavior."
Sasuke: ?
Kaito raised a finger and poked Sasuke's forehead hard, making him clutch his head with both hands and yelp.
"Are you insane?!"
"Then why did you give me a nickname today?"
"'Beast'... sounds so embarrassing!"
Kaito's double standards thoroughly enraged Sasuke, like provoking a sleeping beast.
"That's different. Between us, it doesn't matter."
"Besides, what's wrong with calling you 'Beast'? You're the one who said... you wanted to get stronger."
Kaito spoke earnestly—when he said "Beast," there wasn't a trace of mockery in his tone.
He knew full well that Sasuke would become one of the world's two ultimate powerhouses in the future.
Sasuke's mouth hung half-open, his angry retort halfway formed before being swallowed back down at these words.
In the end, all that came out was a weak, disgruntled snort.
"Hmph!"
Sasuke turned his back, making it clear that right now...
He wouldn't say another word to Kaito.
"Sasuke... do you want to make your Lightning Release stronger?"
Yet in the next second, Kaito's words seemed to whisper like a demon in his ear, instantly changing Sasuke's attitude from moments ago.
"Yes!"
Sasuke didn't understand much, but he could tell their father had been troubled by clan matters lately.
He wanted to grow stronger quickly so he could share his father's burdens.
"Wait a sec."
Kaito furtively pulled a lightbulb from his pocket, eyeing Sasuke up and down. "About that electricity you released earlier..."
Sasuke loudly corrected him: "It's Lightning Release!"
"Fine, fine, Lightning Release then. Can you do it again?"
He hadn't failed to notice the changes in Sasuke that morning—he just hadn't thought of a good approach yet.
After all...
The cost of burning through money with a reversing electric meter really wasn't worth it compared to proper Lightning Release training.
But that didn't mean it was completely useless.Kaito felt he could impart some different knowledge to Sasuke in advance.
He didn't expect his foolish little brother to be of much help, but at least it might spare the guy from suffering too much at the hands of Itachi in the future.
"Alright."
Sasuke skeptically glanced at the lightbulb in Kaito's hand before assuming his familiar "straining" posture, laboriously gathering Lightning Release chakra within his body.
Sometimes one couldn't help but marvel at how Sasuke's talent for Lightning Release surpassed his aptitude for Fire Release. In less than ten seconds, Kaito could already see arcs of electricity flickering across Sasuke's body.
"Try holding this."
Worried about getting shocked, Kaito set the bulb on the ground first, signaling for Sasuke to pick it up.
"And then?"
Sasuke picked up the bulb, looking utterly bewildered at Kaito. He had no idea what connection this bulb had with his Lightning Release training.
"Remember the chakra control exercises from before?"
The precision of chakra control determined the power and efficiency of Ninjutsu—and Lightning Release control was no exception...
Kaito was genuinely intent on teaching Sasuke the principles of electricity.
Whether it would make him stronger or not was uncertain, but Kaito was sure that in the future, Sasuke would develop self-created techniques even more formidable than Kirin.
"Got it!"
Sasuke roughly understood his meaning and immediately gripped the bulb, closing his eyes to focus entirely on discharging electricity.
BANG—
The moment the electric arcs made contact with the bulb, they instantly burned through the filament inside, sending glass shards scattering everywhere.
"Let me try again!"
Unwilling to accept failure, Sasuke spread his palms, insisting that the previous attempt had just been a mistake.
"Fine."
Kaito seemed to have anticipated this outcome. He turned and hauled out three crates of bulbs from the corner of the yard.
Just then, Itachi Uchiha—who had returned to visit his younger brother—pushed open the door, standing at the entrance alongside Shisui.
What they saw was Kaito continuously handing bulbs to Sasuke, only for each one to explode the moment Sasuke took it.
The two of them looked like they were setting off firecrackers—except they had replaced the firecrackers with lightbulbs...
Even a shinobi as formidable as Shisui couldn't help but question his life choices at that moment.
"Itachi..."
"Don't tell me... they're training Lightning Release...?"
Itachi: "..."
He didn't answer, but his silence was deafening.
[Is it good if i do a mass release?]