Chapter 9: The Nature of Power
"I AM HERE... coming through the door like a normal person!"
All Might's grand entrance into the classroom for Foundational Heroics was met with a wave of star-struck gasps and excited shouts. The number one hero, in his gleaming silver-age costume, was a living legend. His very presence seemed to make the room brighter.
As his classmates vibrated with excitement, Sasuke leaned back in his chair, his expression unchanging. He watched the Symbol of Peace with the detached curiosity of a biologist studying a particularly loud and colorful specimen.
Today's lesson was on the philosophy of heroism. All Might spoke of courage, of sacrifice, and above all, of the importance of smiling. "A smile is the ultimate reassurance!" he boomed, striking a heroic pose. "It tells the people you are saving that everything is going to be okay! It strikes fear into the hearts of villains because they know you are not afraid! Your spirit, young heroes, is your greatest weapon!"
Midoriya was scribbling furiously in his notebook, his eyes shining with pure adoration. He hung on every word as if it were scripture.
Sasuke, meanwhile, was dissecting the hero's logic and finding it faulty. A smile is a mask to hide your own fear or exhaustion, he thought, his gaze cold. It creates a false sense of security. And a symbol is just a taller target. True security doesn't come from reassurance. It comes from the complete and utter elimination of the threat.
After the class, as students buzzed with talk of the upcoming battle trials, Midoriya scurried over to him, his notebook clutched to his chest.
"U-Uchiha-kun!" he stammered. "That was incredible in the cafeteria! I've been analyzing it... the way you moved, it defied physics! It wasn't just speed; it was your spatial awareness and minimal energy expenditure. Is that an application of your Quirk? Does it grant you a form of predictive motion or hyper-reflexes? I was thinking it could be..." He devolved into his trademark muttering storm, his mind racing through possibilities.
Sasuke stopped walking, forcing Midoriya to halt his ramble. He turned and gave the green-haired boy a long, clinical look, his eyes flicking down to Midoriya's right arm, which was still scarred from the entrance exam.
"You," Sasuke said, his voice devoid of heat but sharp as a shard of ice. "In the exam. You have a cannon, but you use it by strapping it to your own chest and lighting the fuse. Your power is a liability. To yourself, and to anyone who has the misfortune of standing near you." He didn't say it with malice. He said it with the dispassionate finality of a doctor delivering a terminal diagnosis.
"Worry about your own weaknesses before you try to analyze my strengths," he finished. "Don't talk to me."
He turned and walked away down the hall, leaving Midoriya standing there, stunned into silence, the compliment he had been trying to give turned to ash in his mouth.
That evening, Sasuke bypassed his apartment's spartan training area. His body was reaching its limits, but his mind had a new path to explore. He made his way to U.A.'s library, a colossal, multi-storied archive of knowledge that was mostly empty at this hour.
He walked past the brightly lit sections on "Modern Quirk Theory," "Hero Law and Ethics," and "Support Item Engineering." He headed for the back, to a dusty, forgotten wing of the library labeled "Pre-Quirk History & Global Mythology." The air here was still and smelled of old paper and decaying leather.
He was hunting for a ghost. The doctor's words, so many years ago, had planted a seed: "ancestral energy." He believed the truth of his power was not in the science of the present, but in the legends of the past.
He pulled down heavy, leather-bound tomes and unrolled delicate, crumbling scrolls. He read about the Age of Chaos, the lawless period before All Might when Quirks first emerged and society collapsed. But he looked further back. He found scattered references in ancient texts from the Far East. They spoke of clans of hidden warriors, of assassins and spies who moved like ghosts long before Quirks were ever imagined. They called them shinobi.
These legends spoke of the warriors' ability to perform superhuman feats: walking on water, breathing fire, creating illusions. The texts claimed it was not a genetic gift, but an art form, a spiritual and physical discipline. It came from cultivating and mastering the latent energy that existed within all living things.
An energy the texts called... Chakra.
He found a diagram, a faded ink drawing of a man sitting cross-legged, lines of energy flowing through his body, pooling in his stomach. The text described how this chakra, a blend of spiritual and physical energy, could be molded, shaped, and released through sheer force of will. And to aid in that process, the shinobi used specific, intricate hand gestures. They were called seals.
Sasuke stared at the page, his reflection barely visible in the darkened glass of a nearby bookshelf. The pieces were clicking into place. The cold, coiled energy he felt, the way it responded to his emotions, the way he could use it to enhance his body. It all fit.
The chapter ended with a close-up of his hand, hovering over a diagram of a simple, two-handed seal. A spark of intense, hungry concentration lit his dark eyes. He had a name for the silent lake inside him. And now, he had a possible instruction manual. The path to power was no longer just about pushing his body. It was about learning a lost, forgotten art.