Chapter 42:
"Every day you train with me, yet you still can't make any progress?"
After school, back at the Uchiha house, Sasuke and Naruto went to the training ground. Once again, Naruto was easily defeated by Sasuke.
"I want to improve too, but…"
Naruto climbed up from the ground and sat there with a dejected look.
He hadn't been able to sleep during the day and was extremely tired now…
"You sleep so much every day. From now on, stop sleeping in class. Iruka-sensei is already angry. You need to put in some effort yourself…"
After saying that, Sasuke turned away in annoyance and went to another part of the courtyard to practice shuriken throwing.
Now that the entire Uchiha clan grounds belonged only to the two of them, all these empty courtyards could be freely used for training.
"Ugh…"
Naruto sighed while sitting on the ground, then stood up and began doing basic physical exercises.
'I still feel like something's off. Iruka-sensei's behavior today definitely has some hidden meaning, but he still cares about you. Could it be that the higher-ups gave him a new mission?'
While practicing his throws, Sasuke asked the question that had been bothering him.
He had thought about it during school, but it definitely wasn't about letting Naruto be mocked by classmates.
'They probably think we're too close, or they want me to have more friends…'
Naruto did push-ups on the ground. One moment of distraction and he collapsed, too lazy to get back up.
He was storing all his power inside the soul space so that Konoha's higher-ups wouldn't notice how much he had actually grown.
But his body couldn't stay this weak forever. He could only hope the upcoming experiments would yield satisfactory results.
All of that could wait. For now, he needed to accumulate more chakra.
'Your friends… those three — were they the ones chosen by the higher-ups?'
Sasuke's shuriken suddenly flew with extra force, piercing straight through the target on the wall.
They were even arranging new friends for Naruto?
Were the higher-ups planning to make a move against him?
'I'm the Nine-Tails jinchuriki. If war breaks out, I'm the strongest weapon they have. If I have no attachment to the village, they'll have nightmares, won't they?'
Naruto lay on the ground, tilting his head to look at a small blade of grass beside him.
He wasn't deliberately playing the victim with Sasuke. To Konoha, he truly was a powerful but potentially backfiring weapon of war.
One wrong move and he could turn on them…
He would. Sooner or later, he would make them taste the pain of betrayal!
'So now there's a teacher who cares about you, and friends you can play with. What's next?'
Sasuke rested his hands on his knees, breathing heavily.
He really wanted to kill someone right now. He desperately wanted to go ask the Hokage — why!
Why did they get to control other people's fates? Why did they have to turn everything into a scheme…
Just because they were stronger?
'Sasuke, it seems a lot of girls like you!'
Feeling the gloomy emotions coming from Sasuke, Naruto suddenly smiled and brought up an interesting topic.
'What do you mean?'
Girls who liked him?
Sasuke did know a little about that, but so what?
Those girls only liked his appearance. The Uchiha clan had always been good-looking — he had known that since he was very young.
'Basically, I'm saying that if you want to revive the Uchiha clan, you might have another path in the future — having lots of children…'
Naruto suddenly burst out laughing while lying on the ground. He didn't need to go to the next courtyard to know that Sasuke's Sharingan had activated out of pure anger.
But at least that heavy, gloomy feeling from earlier had disappeared!
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