Chapter 114 (Patreon)

“Izumi, why are you hiding back here...?”

Standing behind Izumi, Yūgao Uzuki spoke with a faint blush on her face.

“I... I...”

Izumi’s entire body trembled. She slowly turned around before answering in a barely audible voice.

“Yūgao... I saw everything last night...”

“Huh?”

That morning, the Genin graduation exam at the Konoha Ninja Academy finally came to an end.

Unsurprisingly, every member of the Konoha Twelve passed.

What came next was the tense—and highly anticipated—team assignment.

Nearly every graduating student in the classroom hoped to be placed on the same team as Naruto or Sasuke.

After all, joining either of them would give those students more opportunities to approach Yujiro, the shinobi they admired more than anyone else.

Meanwhile, inside the waiting room reserved for the jōnin instructors, Yujiro entered alongside Kurenai Yūhi.

Several people were already waiting inside.

The first was Hatake Kakashi.

Over the past five years, Kakashi’s strength had not undergone any overwhelming transformation, but he was still considerably stronger than he had been in the original course of events.

Standing nearby was Might Guy, the man who regarded Kakashi as his eternal rival.

He was also the same man who, under the right circumstances, possessed enough power in a single kick to nearly bring even the strongest enemy to his knees.

The remaining two were Uchiha Shisui and Uchiha Itachi, both of whom had served in the Anbu.

The moment Yujiro saw Itachi, his gaze sharpened slightly.

In the original timeline, Itachi had died at only twenty-one years old.

The true cause had been the serious illness hidden within his body. In the past, Yujiro’s senses had not been refined enough to detect precisely what was wrong with him.

However, after unlocking the Fourth Stage of the Limiter, Yujiro’s perception had reached an almost microscopic level of precision.

The moment he focused on Itachi, he immediately noticed the abnormalities hidden throughout his body.

Itachi’s condition could not yet be called critical, but it was far from reassuring.

Some time ago, Yujiro had even asked Tsunade to examine him. Unfortunately, not even she had been able to identify the exact cause of the illness.

Now, however, repairing the damage inside Itachi’s body would be effortless.

“Itachi, come here. I have something for you.”

Yujiro raised a hand and beckoned him over.

Itachi looked surprised, but he quickly approached. A trace of anticipation appeared in his eyes.

Yujiro lifted his right hand and pressed his index and middle fingers lightly against Itachi’s forehead.

“Fourth-Stage Ability—Cellular Restoration.”

In an instant, a strange yet powerful energy flowed from Yujiro’s fingertips and entered Itachi’s body.

The mysterious illness that had tormented Itachi for years was completely insignificant before that power.

With a single touch, every diseased cell and hidden injury inside his body was repaired.

Not only that, but Itachi could feel his chakra rapidly becoming fuller and more vigorous than ever before.

A sharp pain suddenly pierced his eyes.

Itachi instinctively closed them as two trails of blood ran down his cheeks.

Shisui’s expression changed the moment he saw it.

He was extremely familiar with that reaction.

Such intense fluctuations in ocular power only occurred when the Sharingan underwent a major transformation.

Itachi had already awakened the Three-Tomoe Sharingan.

If his eyes were evolving again, then there was only one possibility.

The Mangekyō Sharingan.

Shisui stared at Yujiro in disbelief.

With nothing more than a light touch of two fingers, he had pushed Itachi’s Three-Tomoe Sharingan into the Mangekyō?

Even for Yujiro, that sounded almost impossible.

A moment later, Itachi slowly opened his eyes.

A new pattern had appeared within his scarlet pupils.

It was unmistakably the Mangekyō Sharingan.

“You cannot be serious...”

Even Kakashi was unable to remain calm after witnessing it.

One touch.

That was all Yujiro had needed to awaken a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan.

Just how unreasonable had his abilities become?

Yujiro, however, did not appear surprised.

Itachi’s natural talent had always been extraordinary.

Yujiro had repaired every injury and defect hidden within his body while simultaneously flooding him with an immense amount of restorative energy.

With that kind of stimulation, it would have been stranger if Itachi’s ocular power had remained unchanged.

Furthermore, Yujiro’s ability had restored the very foundation of Itachi’s body.

Under those circumstances, his Sharingan no longer required the usual intense emotional trauma to complete its evolution.

“Thank you, Yujiro-san.”

Itachi had always been aware that something was wrong with his body.

Now, he could clearly feel that the illness and all the hidden damage within him had completely disappeared.

The gratitude he felt toward Yujiro was impossible to express in words.

“Just continue protecting Konoha,” Yujiro replied with a smile. “There will be plenty of battles waiting for us in the future.”

The abilities granted by the Fourth Stage of the Limiter truly were extraordinary.

Just then, someone knocked on the waiting-room door.

Kakashi walked over and opened it.

“The team assignments have begun,” an Academy instructor announced as he stepped inside. “We will start with Team Three.”

He glanced down at the list in his hand.

“The jōnin instructor assigned to Team Three is Might Guy. Its Genin members are Hyūga Neji, Tenten, and Rock Lee.”

“All right!”

Guy laughed enthusiastically before walking over and placing a hand on Kakashi’s shoulder.

“Kakashi! It appears I shall be leaving first!”

Kakashi merely shrugged.

After knowing Guy for so many years, he had long since become accustomed to that personality.

Not long afterward, Shisui was also assigned as a jōnin instructor.

He would lead Team Ten—the new generation of the Ino–Shika–Chō formation.

Sarutobi Asuma had left Konoha long ago to protect the daimyō of the Land of Fire as one of the Twelve Guardian Ninja.

He still had not returned.

At this point, he was probably too embarrassed to show his face in the village.

Kurenai Yūhi retained command of Team Eight, which consisted of Hyūga Hinata, Aburame Shino, and Inuzuka Kiba.

As for the team with the most absurdly gifted lineup, Yujiro decided to leave it to Kakashi.

After all, Kakashi had a strange reputation for somehow turning nearly every battle into an evenly matched contest.

Furthermore, during the past five years, Kakashi had become an exceptionally devoted fan of the Make-Out Paradise series.

His enthusiasm had reached the point where he behaved like an obsessive admirer following his favorite celebrity.

Somehow, he had even earned the title of “Konoha’s Number One Technician.”

Even Yujiro had no idea how Kakashi had acquired such a peculiar title.

Once the team assignments were settled, Yujiro left the waiting room.

He had only come there because he was accompanying Kurenai.

The person originally meant to accompany her had been Yūgao Uzuki.

Unfortunately, Yūgao probably would not be moving around very much today.

Yujiro scratched the side of his head.

It seemed he really should restrain himself a little more next time.

As he walked through Konoha’s streets, Yujiro observed the flourishing village around him and gave a satisfied nod.

Now, this truly looked like the greatest shinobi village in the world.

Konoha possessed an overwhelming supply of manpower and resources, and its financial strength had also risen to an entirely different level.

Even if the other four great shinobi villages joined forces, Konoha now possessed enough power to contend with all of them.

Meanwhile, the development of the other four great villages had remained relatively ordinary during the past several years.

Dissatisfaction had gradually begun to spread among them.

However, the senior leadership of each village had forcibly suppressed those complaints.

After all, none of them was bold enough to challenge Yujiro.

At that moment, a golden streak suddenly flashed before him.

Minato Namikaze appeared in the middle of the street.

Yujiro grinned.

“Minato-sensei, the Flying Thunder God Technique really is convenient.”

“Do you want to learn it, Yujiro?” Minato asked, scratching the back of his head. “I can teach you whenever you are ready.”

“I haven’t developed the necessary space-time affinity yet. I’ll wait a little longer.”

Yujiro’s casual answer left Minato staring at him in confusion.

He had not developed it yet?

What exactly was that supposed to mean?

Was Yujiro implying that he would somehow acquire the necessary aptitude in the future?

If anyone else had said something like that, Minato would have dismissed it as impossible.

However, the one standing before him was Yujiro.

And if those words had come from Yujiro, then perhaps it truly was possible.

There was no complicated reason behind Minato’s certainty.

It was simply because this was Yujiro—the man who had already created more miracles than anyone could count.