Chapter 206: Little Brat, As If I Can't Handle You
The chorus of awe directed at Kakashi grated on Obito's nerves. His face scrunched up in immediate displeasure, crossing his arms with a huff.
"What's the big deal anyway?" he muttered, before puffing out his chest and turning to Stelle. "Our Uchiha shurikenjutsu is the most powerful in the village! Just watch, A-Mu. I'll definitely do way better than Kakashi."
Snatching a shuriken from the rack, Obito marched toward the nearest wooden target with absolute confidence. He wound up his arm, eyes locked on the bullseye. But just as he shifted his weight to throw, his heel caught on a smooth, perfectly round stone hidden in the dirt.
His balance vanished. Obito stumbled forward with a yelp, his arm flailing wildly. The shuriken slipped from his grip, sailing through the air in a pathetic arc before barely embedding itself into the outermost wooden rim of the target.
A chorus of merciless laughter immediately erupted from the surrounding students.
Stelle brought a hand to her face, dragging her palm down her cheek. 'Great. That's so Obito.'
Obito's cheeks flared a brilliant crimson. "I—I slipped just now!" he stammered, waving his arms frantically. "That totally doesn't count!"
He scrambled to grab another shuriken, quickly resetting his stance and throwing it with a desperate grunt. The iron star spun through the air, thunking into the wood. It was better than his first attempt, but far from excellent, landing squarely in the third or fourth ring. Obito stared at the target, utterly dumbfounded.
The laughter from the class only grew louder. They had all heard this loudmouth declare his grand ambitions of becoming the Hokage, only to witness a display that proved he was nothing more than hot air.
"It's okay, Obito," Stelle said, her voice dripping with practiced gentle reassurance. "You just had a bad throw. As long as you practice hard, you'll definitely get much better in the future."
Her soft comfort worked like magic. Obito's drooping shoulders instantly perked up. "Yeah! A-Mu is right!" he declared, pumping a fist. "I just didn't perform at my best!"
Now, it was Stelle's turn. She stepped up to the throwing line, the cold iron of a kunai resting lightly in her palm. As she stared down the wooden target, her dark gaze gradually sharpened. In that split second, the air around her seemed to shift, carrying the heavy, focused aura of a seasoned killer.
Leaning against a nearby tree trunk, Kakashi caught the subtle shift. His visible eye widened just a fraction in surprise. 'Could my seatmate actually be a hidden expert?' he mused, suddenly paying close attention.
Then, she threw.
The kunai sailed through the air and completely bypassed the wooden post, burying itself into the dirt a good three feet away. She followed it up with a rapid volley of shuriken. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Every single blade missed the target entirely, scattering across the grass like discarded toys. Not a single piece of iron even grazed the wood.
Kakashi, who had actually leaned forward in anticipation, let out a long, silent sigh. His gaze instantly reverted to its usual, half-lidded dead-fish stare. 'What was I even expecting?' he thought, shaking his head. This girl clearly didn't look like someone who came from a clan with the resources to train at home.
Snickers and giggles rippled through the nearby students as Stelle continued her disastrous throwing streak. It couldn't be helped; the academy had grouped most of the elite clan heirs into this specific class. Even the civilian-born children with average talent had been given basic pointers by their ninja parents beforehand, allowing them to at least hit the outer rings. There were only a handful of orphans among them, but absolutely none were as catastrophically bad as Stelle.
"A-Mu, your grip on the shuriken is all wrong!" Obito hurried over, eager to play the hero. "Let me teach you. Once you know how to hold it properly, it won't be so easy to miss."
Stelle offered him a helpless, grateful smile. "Then I'll leave it to you, Obito."
The two of them immediately formed a pathetic little study group. Obito demonstrated his flawed techniques with absolute, deadpan seriousness, and Stelle mimicked him with equally intense dedication. Unsurprisingly, the results were entirely non-existent. Blades continued to fly into the grass, the dirt, and occasionally the nearby bushes.
A cluster of Uchiha clan members practicing nearby watched the disastrous spectacle unfold. Their faces twisted in collective second-hand embarrassment. To them, Obito was dragging the proud Uchiha name through the mud.
"Seriously, he's already the dead last of the class, yet he actually has the nerve to teach someone else?" one of them sneered, not bothering to lower his voice.
"One is garbage no matter how much he trains, and the other is too hopeless to even learn. What a pair of idiots," another chimed in, crossing his arms.
"Trash really does belong with trash."
When Obito had slipped and made a fool of himself earlier, the mockery hadn't pierced too deeply. He was used to it. But hearing them insult Stelle made his blood boil. He spun around, his fists clenched tight at his sides.
"Shut up!" Obito roared, glaring at his clansmen. "A-Mu has just never had the chance to learn before! When you threw a shuriken for the very first time, did you hit the bullseye? Huh?!"
The Uchiha students merely scoffed, shooting him looks of utter disdain before turning their backs. They moved to another target to resume their practice. While their throws weren't breathtakingly brilliant, they were consistently solid. The current Uchiha Clan was at the height of its prestige—a massive, flourishing family that boasted several capable new-generation talents in every single academy class.
Obito stubbornly returned to his coaching, trying to guide Stelle's arm. Unfortunately, his own foundational posture was a mess, meaning every demonstration he gave was fundamentally flawed.
Kakashi, who had been silently observing the trainwreck from his spot against the tree, finally reached his limit.
"'Lock the blade with the tiger's mouth, hide strength in the knuckles, rotate the waist to lead the shoulder, and flick the wrist instantly,'" Kakashi recited, his voice dripping with dry condescension. "Have you even bothered to master the basic mnemonic?"
Obito froze, bristling instantly. Kakashi pushed off the tree, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"Your waist rotation is far too wide, and you're raising your shoulder way too high. If you keep teaching her like that, you're only going to ruin her muscle memory."
"Who asked you, Bakakashi?!" Obito exploded, abandoning the target entirely to charge at the silver-haired boy.
The argument instantly devolved into a physical scuffle. Or rather, it became a one-sided game of tag. Obito swung wildly, throwing punches and kicks with furious energy, while Kakashi lazily swayed out of the way, dodging every strike with minimal effort. Obito couldn't land a single hit, failing miserably as he panted for breath.
Stelle stood by the throwing line, still holding a shuriken. A metaphorical bead of sweat dropped down the back of her head as she watched the two boys bicker and dodge. 'Why do I always feel like I'm just an NPC in their weird little rivalry?' she thought, thoroughly amused but keeping her face perfectly blank.
Senju Naoto, the academy instructor, had just finished logging the class's overall skill levels on his clipboard. Spotting the commotion, he sighed and marched over, physically prying Obito and Kakashi apart. True to his good-natured reputation, he offered them both a few placating words of praise before turning his attention to the real problem.
"Student A-Mu has clearly never been exposed to shurikenjutsu before," Naoto noted, tapping his pen against his chin. He then looked down at the silver-haired prodigy. "Student Kakashi, since your fundamentals are so excellent, why don't you take over teaching Student A-Mu? I'm counting on you."
"Teacher! Sensei!" Obito instantly protested, waving his arms frantically. He shuffled back and forth horizontally like an agitated crab, desperately trying to block Kakashi from view. "I can teach A-Mu myself! There's absolutely no need to trouble Kakashi. He's way too mean! He's just going to scare A-Mu!"
Naoto offered a helpless, pitying smile, placing a heavy hand on the boy's shoulder to stop his crab-walking. "Obito... you really need to focus on your own practice right now."
Defeated, Obito shot Kakashi a glare of pure, indignant fury. He crossed his arms, secretly vowing in his heart that the moment he got home, he would double his efforts. He wouldn't just study cooking to make delicious bento boxes for A-Mu; he was going to master shurikenjutsu until his fingers bled, just so he could be the one to teach her next time!
Ignoring Obito's defiant glaring, Kakashi let out a long, put-upon sigh and reluctantly trudged over to Stelle's side.
He started with the absolute basics, slowly demonstrating the precise kinetic motion of throwing a kunai. He then stepped back, instructing Stelle to mirror the movement, occasionally stepping in to physically adjust the angle of her wrist or the width of her stance.
Ten minutes later, a genuine crack of shock shattered Kakashi's dead-fish composure. He had never, in his short but prodigious life, imagined that a human being's physical talent could be this abysmally poor.
No matter how carefully he corrected her stance, the exact second his seatmate actually initiated the throw, her entire body mechanics would inexplicably warp. The shuriken would fly out of her hand and violently veer off course, plunging into the dirt as if she had been actively aiming for the earthworms all along. Iron stars littered the grass in a chaotic halo around the wooden post. Not a single one had even grazed the bark.
Kakashi threw his hands up. He was done.
Marching over to Obito, he grabbed the back of the Uchiha's collar, dragged him over to where he had just been standing, and shoved him toward Stelle. Without a single word, Kakashi turned on his heel to leave. His body language screamed his intentions: If you want to teach her so badly, be my guest.
He wasn't suited for teaching people to begin with, and he was even less suited for teaching utter idiots.
`[Ding! Mood Value from Kakashi Hatake +1000]`
Stelle subtly raised an eyebrow, a wicked thrill racing through her veins. 'Wait, just trying to teach me how to throw a piece of metal caused your emotions to spike this much?'She suppressed a dark, gleeful smirk.'Well then, I definitely won't hold back. Let me show you what true, weaponized mediocrity looks like.'
"But... but the teacher told you to teach me," Stelle stammered out, pitching her voice to sound perfectly timid and anxious. She made sure it was just loud enough to pierce through the noisy training ground and reach Kakashi's ears. "We... we can't disobey the teacher, right?"
Kakashi's retreating footsteps instantly froze.
"And on the very first day of class, too..." Stelle added, twisting the metaphorical knife with a soft, guilt-inducing whisper. "To go against the teacher's direct orders..."
Kakashi's shoulders slumped. He was completely trapped by his own rigid sense of rules.
Thus, for the next grueling hour, Kakashi Hatake experienced the absolute torment of being boiled alive in a pot of sheer frustration.
Even though he carefully broke down every single mechanic, reciting the exact, flawless training notes his father had drilled into him... And even though he physically demonstrated the throw dozens of times until his own arm ached, his seatmate remained completely, hopelessly inept.
Mentally and physically exhausted, Kakashi stood amidst a sea of missed shuriken, utterly dumbfounded. He tried to recall the deep, intuitive connection he had felt when he first picked up a blade. He remembered his innate, burning desire to grow stronger, and the flawless results he had achieved on his very first day.
Staring at the disaster before him, Kakashi finally came to a deep realization.
He really was a peerless genius, existing on a completely different plane of reality from normal people. He was a true shinobi of the Hatake Clan, the rightful heir to the terrifying talent of Konoha's White Fang.
`[Ding! Mood Value from Kakashi Hatake +10000]`
Stelle bent over to retrieve another dirt-caked shuriken, her face hidden by the curtain of her hair. A fleeting, highly satisfied smile flashed across her dark eyes.
'Little brat,'she thought, enjoying the massive harvest of system points.'As if I can't handle you.'
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