Prodigy

The cafeteria was deathly silent. So much so that Mizuki could hear the sounds of everybody's breathing as they looked towards the figure who was casually getting his lunch.

Everybody seemed to have a different reaction towards him. Some (particularly the girls) were looking at him with admiration and affection, as a crush.

The boys in his class were looking towards him with envy of his talent and all of the attention that he was getting.

And some were looking towards him with curiosity and intrigue, having no idea who this boy was or why everyone else was looking at him.

Mizuki was none of these. He kept acting normal as he continued his lunch with his friends, none of whom knew the boy.

But Mizuki knew. Even if it had been years since he had watched the show that was one character he would never forget.

After all, he was a fan favourite and even in his Top 3 for favourite characters when on earth.

It was Itachi Uchiha.

Apparently, Shisui hadn't met him yet in this timeline, although he probably would soon.

Regardless, it was interesting seeing someone who Mizuki knew would go on to slaughter his entire clan as a child.

Interestingly, Shisui commented on how, with his sharingan, he could tell that the Itachi in front of them was just a shadow clone.

A tactic that Mizuki and his friends all respected, after all, they normally did the same thing as well.

However, for Mizuki, seeing Itachi had also brought a sense of urgency.

Just recently, within the last couple of months, The Third Great Shinobi War had begun with fighting starting all across the land of the Village Hidden in The Grass.

(A/N: Land that the Grass Village belongs to wasn't stated on the wiki so now it's just the "land of")

Although it was not considered a "Shinobi War" yet, every side still knew that the fighting would be intense. And it was already starting to grow worse.

Seeing Itachi showed Mizuki that there was still a war going on. Regardless of how protected he felt in his little bubble of the Leaf Village with his friends, the outside world would keep moving.

A world that, if he did nothing in, would claim the lives of his friends and dramatically alter the course of history for others.

Outside of Itachi's arrival, the school day remained largely the same. Mizuki spent it talking to his friends, sleeping and goofing off.

Mizuki knew this would be one of the last times he could do this wholeheartedly before the end of the Third Shinobi War.

As soon as school wrapped up, Mizuki body flickered away until he reached a spot in the forest.

This was an area that even his friends and teachers didn't know about, an area where he trained on his own.

Mizuki then focused his chakra as he summoned a series of eight clones; his absolute maximum.

After years of training whilst his Chakra was nowhere near at a monster level like Naruto's, it was still on the higher end.

With Mizuki himself joining in, making nine, they all got into groups of three. Two of them started practicing the rasengan whilst the third then tried infusing his chakra nature; fire.

This was a skill which Mizuki had already learned when casting standard fire style jutsu. Regardless, Mizuki still could not do it after practicing for the entire night.

Mizuki walked home without a hint of discouragement though. He knew that this skill was one that would take a long time to master and he was willing to invest in this time sink.

After all, without a magic eyeball or tailed beast Mizuki still needed to learn some way to be useful to his group.

________________________________________________________________________________________

(Next Day)

The next day went as most normal ones did, Mizuki and his friends all sent shadow clones to school whilst they all went to work on their own training.

Similar to the previous day, Mizuki ended up working on infusing his fire chakra into the rasengan to create a new powerful attack.

Whenever he was low on chakra, Mizuki would then practice his fitness by punching and kicking trees and doing an inordinate amount of push-ups and sit ups.

Mizuki was hoping to reach the next stage of the eight inner gates. He was stuck at the Fourth Gate after all of these years, and he was hoping to push towards the fifth.

However, not even ten minutes later Mizuki instantly jumped in surprise as he rushed towards where everyone he normally met up with went to.

His shadow clone at the academy dissipated itself as soon as classes ended. And for good reason because what just happened is something that Mizuki needed to know right away.