Strictly speaking, the only reason Uchiha Feiyu ever got called a deadlast was because he was older than everyone else and half-assed his written exams on purpose. The teachers and students all knew perfectly well:
If it came down to an actual fight, this guy could throw hands.
Most people just couldn't be bothered to take him seriously because of his age.
"Mm-hmm. Exactly," Feiyu nodded solemnly. "I only beat you because I'm older, after all… I mean, you are the Hokage's precious eldest son."
"Bastard! What do you mean 'Hokage's precious son'?! I'm me, I've got nothing to do with that old man!"
The moment the Hokage was mentioned, Asuma's composure cracked.
He'd been a problem child since he was little, and he hated it when people treated him like an accessory to the Hokage. In the original timeline he'd literally run off to the Fire Daimyo's court to serve as one of the Twelve Guardian Ninja just to get out from under that shadow.
One nice thing about the shinobi world, though: there weren't many people who could rely on "who their daddy was" to get everything (in terms of position, not bloodline). Favors existed, sure, but nobody got coddled for long.
Asuma might be the Hokage's son, but when Feiyu had beaten him up that time… he'd just beaten him up. As long as nobody died or got crippled, the Hokage and every other ninja who heard about it would shrug it off.
"Alright, alright, we get it," Feiyu said lazily. "No one's ever given you special treatment. All your top-student glory was earned with your own two fists and feet, nothing to do with Lord Hokage at all…"
He kept his tone utterly casual, but every word dripped with sarcasm.
Asuma's face alternated between red and green. Everything Feiyu said was technically true, but somehow it still sounded unbearably annoying.
Before he could snap back, Rin stepped in, gently diverting the topic.
"By the way, Asuma," she said, watching the boys with soft eyes, "you probably know more than we do about what's going on in the village. Do you know what actually happened? Why are we suddenly talking about war?"
"I heard… just heard, okay? It's just a rumor!" Asuma puffed up a bit, then lowered his voice. "They say it's because a powerful Konoha shinobi messed up an important mission and made Sunagakure hostile to us…"
He was still only eight or nine. Kids' tempers flared fast and faded fast. Once Rin nudged the conversation, whatever he'd been angry about a moment ago vanished, replaced by the thrill of sharing "classified" intel.
Of course, anything Asuma could overhear hardly counted as a real secret. Every proper shinobi in the village's active ranks knew more—and knew it more clearly—than he did.
Like the name of the man at the center of that mission.
Feiyu was almost certain that by now, at least half of Konoha's Chunin and every jonin knew the truth: that the one who'd led the mission was Hatake Sakumo.
Asuma, Hokage's son or not, had no idea.
S-rank missions came with extreme confidentiality by default. In theory, no one outside the team involved and a handful of the highest-ranking village officials should ever hear about them.
For details to filter down to Academy students—even in vague form—there could only be one explanation:
Someone was deliberately pushing these rumors along.
And at the speed they were spreading, there was a good chance the full story would "mysteriously" become common knowledge.
So Sakumo really is being set up, Feiyu thought. Otherwise there's no way the news would move this fast.
While he was putting the pieces together on the Academy grounds, elsewhere, in the Hokage's office, things were playing out very differently.
The Third Hokage sat behind his desk, pipe in hand, smoke curling slowly upward as he stared gravely at his old comrade, Shimura Danzō.
"Danzō. The village has been awash in rumors lately, all about White Fang's failed mission. This is your doing, isn't it?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Danzō denied it without blinking. He knew there was no way to truly hide his actions from Hiruzen… but that didn't mean he was about to admit anything.
"White Fang botched a mission," he said coolly. "It's only natural people would talk. Because of that one mistake, we might end up going to war with the Hidden Sand."
"With a blunder that serious, of course the shinobi of the village are going to have opinions. What, are we not even allowed to speak when someone screws up now?"
Hiruzen ignored the sophistry completely. He knew this old friend far too well.
"Put away your petty schemes," the Third said coldly. "Whatever happened, Sakumo is still one of Konoha's strongest shinobi. He's already been punished. This matter ends here."
"Hmph. Has nothing to do with me anyway."
Danzō turned on his heel and walked out, irritation simmering under his calm face.
Ends here? As if.
Sakumo's prestige in the village was too high; a bit of gossip wasn't nearly enough to shake his standing or truly break his reputation. If Danzō didn't use this chance to crush the White Fang's position completely, how was he ever supposed to compete with him for the Hokage's seat?
Shinobi were meant to be tools—silent, obedient tools. What did a "tool" need a reputation like that for?
Not enough, Danzō thought, eyes narrowing. Far from enough. I need to hit him harder—hard enough that he'll never again have the qualifications to inherit the title of Hokage.
To Hiruzen, he was the Hokage, above it all. For now, Sakumo's fame, while impressive, didn't threaten him directly. All he needed was to knock the White Fang down a peg, and then he could wield that blade with a surer grip.
To Danzō, whose head was full of nothing but the Hokage's chair, Hatake Sakumo was a nail in his eye and a thorn in his flesh. As long as Sakumo stood there, he wouldn't sleep soundly.
Back at the Academy, Feiyu knew none of this.
Right now, his head was full of one thing: the depressing fact that he wouldn't get to quietly coast through all six years of the Academy after all.
He was about to be shoved into the official shinobi ranks.
Under normal circumstances, his strength wasn't shabby at all—already at Chunin level, and not a particularly weak Chunin either.
In the manga, "Chunin-level" ninjas tended to look like pure cannon fodder. But in reality, Chunin were no longer the bottom rung of the ladder; they were the middle management of the shinobi world. In an ordinary squad, a Chunin was usually the team leader.
In peacetime, someone of Feiyu's level wouldn't face too much danger.
The problem was, this wasn't peacetime.
Once a Great Ninja War started, even jonin died by the handful, let alone Chunin.
Take Namikaze Minato's most famous feat in the Third War: in a single battle, he wiped out fifty elite Iwa shinobi.
Those "elite" weren't genin—they were at least Chunin, and not one of them was weaker than Feiyu.
Anything could happen on a battlefield. Just because Feiyu had Chunin-level strength didn't mean the enemy would politely send only Chunin after him.
With his luck, he might look up during a mission one day and see the Raikage, Tsuchikage, or Kazekage standing across from him.
Well, that's that. Please try again, young man.
So, in what little time he had left, Feiyu found himself passing by the Hatake household more and more often.
All he wanted was to see when Hatake Sakumo would finally choose to end his life.
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