After several months of wandering around aimlessly, unsure what to do and constantly searching for amusement, finally—two months before the Academy reopened—
That is, after the New Year had passed and she had turned six years old—Uchiha Seiji at last, finally, finally began training again in January!
Truly a moment worthy of celebration.
During that long stretch of leisure, she had felt her overall abilities slipping across the board…
The reason was simple: she had been far too idle.
The only thing that had actually increased was her chakra.
At last, she had broken through the jōnin standard of 100,000, reaching a total of 132,564 chakra points.
But in terms of combat power, she had actually regressed.
If the Seiji from a few months ago had seen the Seiji of now, she would have sneered and declared, "I could take on ten of you!"
And so, in order to restore her abilities before entering the Academy, Seiji returned once more to training.
Of course, she forced her shadow clones to do it.
Her real body remained as lazy as ever.
All she needed was to release the clones each evening, feel the wave of exhaustion rush through her, and then collapse into her luxurious bed, basking in the heavy, delicious fatigue. That alone was satisfying enough!
Because of this, it took her only three days to recover from all the regression she had suffered. After that, every moment was pure progress.
"Ah, thanks."
Masaku accepted the popsicle Seiji handed him with a smile, then turned his gaze toward the center of the training field.
There, standing in the middle, Hatake Kakashi—already approaching chūnin level—was locked in combat against one of Seiji's shadow clones.
The two were evenly matched.
This would have been unthinkable a few months earlier. Back then, even Seiji's clones had crushed Kakashi completely, leaving him with no room to resist.
And yet now…
"Kakashi's improved, hasn't he?"
"Yeah… he has."
Seiji muttered absentmindedly as she flopped onto the sidelines, chewing on her popsicle.
"He's already able to fight evenly against a clone of mine that hasn't trained in months."
Masaku chuckled but didn't comment further.
Kakashi, however, felt the difference vividly.
A few months ago, he had been utterly dominated. But now… he could fight back. He could hold his own. Even if someone else didn't seem to notice or care, Kakashi himself knew for certain—this was progress.
Without a doubt, the Kakashi of now was far ahead of where he had been in the "original" timeline at this age.
And all of it was because of the immense pressure standing beside him day after day—a pressure the Kakashi of that other world had never experienced.
"…Hm? What are you doing?"
Masaku's eyes flicked toward Seiji.
What he saw made a bead of cold sweat roll down his forehead.
Balanced on one of Seiji's fingers was a tiny, smiling Rasengan, spinning steadily. On a second finger, another Rasengan spun. On a third finger, a new Rasengan tried to form, only to collapse before it could fully take shape—over and over again in repetition.
"Nothing much. Just practicing chakra control…"
Seiji slid the popsicle into her mouth, speaking around it casually. She lifted her free hand, holding the frozen treat, and added in a muffled voice, "The goal is to have one of these little spheres spinning on all ten fingers at once. Once I can do that, my training should be complete."
Masaku stared, sweat dripping down his temple.
"You can't be serious… You're using a jutsu this dangerous… just to train chakra control?!"