Chapter – 582 Shinichi’s Strangeness

A few days ago, Akatsuki Organization's Base of Operation

'The Art of Shadow Clones!' x2

Poof… Poof…

With two simultaneous poofs of white smoke, two figures appeared out of thin air in the dingy underground cave, the two figures that suddenly appeared looked identical to their respective casters Sasuke and Neji, and silently stood beside each of the two.

Looking at each of the two Shadow Clones created by Sasuke and Neji, Shinichi smiled slightly, and nodded, "Yes, although there are still some flaws in the Shadow Clones the two of you have created, it should be more than enough to fool a chunin who doesn't rely on Dojutsu…"

When Sasuke and Neji heard the praise, they were suddenly overjoyed.

The Shadow Clone Jutsu is not an ordinary Jutsu, its difficulty is ranked at B-Rank, and even among all the B-Rank Jutsu, it is among the most difficult and unsafe ones.

Because Shadow Clone Jutsu causes rapid depletion of Chakra Reserves, it is considered dangerous, as such, usually only those of at least Jonin-level can safely use this Jutsu. And this is just the 'Shadow Clone Jutsu', not the advanced, 'Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu' which is considered unsafe to the point of being listed as a Forbidden Jutsu.

Because of the dangerous nature of the Shadow Clone Jutsu, the parents generally don't allow young children to come in contact with this B-Rank Jutsu, as such, neither Sasuke nor Neji was allowed to touch this Jutsu…

But Shinichi is different from them, he has no such concern… Uchiha Shinichi––who has seen the depths of the Shinobi World from the eyes of Akatsuki––knows better than those living in Konoha that the Shinobi World is an ever-evolving battlefield where only the fittest, finest, courageous, cleverest, and the luckiest survives… And if someone wishes to survive then regardless of which category they fit into, they must at least have the ability to protect themselves.

As such, Shinichi who was bored as hell because of staying at this base for so long and not being able to do anything decided to teach the Shadow Clone Jutsu to the two kids...

But Shinichi must admit that he was really surprised by the talent of the two kids. He didn't expect that the two children, Sasuke and Neji would be so talented that in just a few tries both of them managed to learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu.

In fact, rather than Sasuke, whose talent he had already expected, Shinichi was more surprised by Hyuga Neji's talent, the kid might be a child belonging to the branch division of the Hyuga Clan, but Shinichi has personally witnessed that Neji is more of a natural genius than Sasuke, even if Sasuke has already awakened the Sharingan, in Shinichi's eyes, Neji is still more genius, there's no doubt about this…

At the same time, Shinichi also understood why did Hyuga Kuroto decide to take Hyuga Neji as his disciple… The best thing about Neji is his level-headed character and calm demeanour, which somewhat reminds Shinichi of Kuroto, only with the lack of wickedness.

When thinking of Neji's sensible character, Shinichi turned towards Sasuke who was extremely excited and felt triumphant after mastering just the Shadow Clone Jutsu, and his face sank because Sasuke sort of reminded Shinichi of himself, 'This kid… Can't let him become a reckless guy like me!'

"Ahem." Shinichi coughed lightly to attract the attention of the two kids, then scowled, "Sasuke, what's there to be so happy about? All you have done is learn a Jutsu, learning is just the first step, and it is also the easiest step… As far as I see, you have yet to make it yours.

You must not forget one important point, however strong or useful of a Jutsu you learn unless you make it yours, which means, unless you are able to smoothly deploy it in your combat tactics, it is just a Jutsu, not your Jutsu.

Remember, whether a Jutsu proves to be useful in the battle, or it becomes just wastage of Chakra is only a moment of single thought… So don't think that just because you learned a Jutsu, you have mastered it as well.

Learning a Jutsu means being able to use a Jutsu, but mastering it means, being capable of using the same Jutsu in the midst of the battle to gain any kind of advantage over your enemy…!"

Sasuke smiled contemptuously and said, "Shinichi-san, you are looking down on me too much… don't forget that I am the youngest awakener of Sharingan (Sasuke isn't aware that Uchiha Izumi awakened her Sharingan at the age of six), so I am the most genius in the Uchiha Clan, even my Nii-san, and Shisui-Nii-san who are both considered unparalleled geniuses of the Uchiha Clan pales in my comparison…"

Shinichi squinted at Sasuke and nodded to himself, 'Yeah, this kid is definitely like how I used to be when I was his age…'

But before Shinichi could say anything to Sasuke, Neji respectfully bowed to him and expressed his gratefulness, "Uchiha Shinichi-san, thank you for teaching us a Jutsu…"

Because of Neji's respectful attitude towards him, Shinichi was a little embarrassed, and waved his hand awkwardly, "No worries… all I did was teach you two the Shadow Clone Jutsu, it's not that big of a deal, and sooner or later the two of you would have learned it anyway, so there's no need to be so polite and respectful…"

Neji nodded lightly, "Alright."

After that, Shinichi shifted his attention back to Sasuke who had a smug smile that made him very uncomfortable and asked with twitching eyebrows, "Sasuke, I remember that you earlier mentioned that Shisui and your brother Itachi generally teach you stuff… so what do they usually teach you? And HOW do they teach you?"

"Heh… Nii-san and Shisui-nii-san teach me a lot of things, and I have already mastered everything they have taught me up until now including all the Shurikenjutsu and Taijutsu of the Uchiha Clan…" said Sasuke with a proud smile, and then added, "Ever since I awakened my Sharingan, all my training sessions with nii-san and Shisui-nii-san include actual combat training in which I am able to fight back and forth with the two of them…"

"Learned all the Shurikenjutsu and Taijutsu of the Uchiha Clan? Actual Combat Training with Shisui and Itachi? And you are able to fight back and forth with the two of them?" Shinichi raised his eyebrows in shock, then grinned, "No wonder you are such a brat… both Shisui and Itachi seem to adore you too much, and as such, they are spoiling you rotten…"

Sasuke frowned, and questioned, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Shinichi shook his head, and continued, "Heh, well I guess I can't blame them; they do look at you as their younger brother and wants to protect you, and can't really bring themselves to hurt you… but still, I didn't expect that even at this age, you are still playing ninja games… when I, or Shisui, or Itachi were your age, were already on the battlefields of war between nations!"

Sasuke was displeased, and said with a pout, "It's not a ninja game… we even use real Shuriken and Kunai…!"

"Oh, you think so? You think that Shisui and Itachi are serious in the so-called 'combat training'?" asked Shinichi with a smirk.

Sasuke replied immediately, "Obviously! Is there even a need to ask such a stupid question?!"

Shinichi nodded lightly, and said, "In that case how about we also do combat training, I am going to show you what real combat training is like…"

"Humph, alright! I am ready any time!" said Sasuke with a cold snort…

Shinichi grinned ear to ear and beckoned Sasuke to attack him…

"Sasuke… maybe it's not such a good idea." Whispered Neji to Sasuke, while looking at Shinichi, Neji had a bad feeling. He is different from Sasuke, Neji is trained harshly by his Otou-san and can feel that Uchiha Shinichi is even more dangerous than his Otou-san, therefore, he was a little worried about Sasuke…

Sasuke said to Neji, "Don't worry… even if can't kill him, I should at least be able to defend myself…"

Neji wanted to continue to persuade Sasuke, but seeing Sasuke's face that showed he has no intention to back down, Neji swallowed his words and moved to the side…

With the coast clear Shinichi folded his hands over his chest, and said, "Come at me with all you've got kid, otherwise, this won't even be a tad bit interesting."

Sasuke saw that Shinichi was being casual, so he issued a fair warning, "Shinichi-san… because you taught me a Jutsu, so I will give you a fair warning, you have to be careful… otherwise, you will get seriously hurt."

As he said so, Sasuke transferred Chakra into his eyes, causing the one-tomoe Sharingan to activate, then quickly weaved the hand seals of a Fire Style Jutsu, and shouted, 'Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!'

Boom!

Suddenly, a large fireball sprayed out of Sasuke's mouth, it shouldered the surrounding air and rushed straight towards who stood akimbo not too far away.

The huge fireball engulfed the entire room in intense fiery heat, and accompanied by a howling sound, slammed into Shinichi's location causing an explosion big enough to spread cracks all over the place.

Whoosh…

"Huh?" Sasuke raised his eyebrows and looked at the surroundings with a frowned expression, 'Where is he?' Sasuke is not completely certain, but he feels that he did catch a glimpse of Shinichi's shadow whizzing past the fireball a moment before the fireball hit the target location, therefore, Shinichi shouldn't have been hurt.

Neji who had his Byakugan activated from the start saw it clearly, the moment that fireball was about to come close to him, Shinichi used a body flicker Jutsu to disappear from his position, and rushed towards… "Sasuke is careful… he is coming for you!"

Whoosh…

Even before Neji issued the warning, Shinichi had already crossed the distance and stood in front of Sasuke!

The dark shadow that suddenly appeared over him gave Sasuke a bad feeling, and even before Sasuke had the opportunity to make any reflexive action, or look up, he felt his body involuntary arch as intense pain came from his abdomen…

Smash! Bang… Crack… Plop…!

Followed by the intense pain, his feet were lifted off of the ground, and by the time he came to understand what was happening, he was heavily smashed into one of the walls causing the rocks to sink in and cracks to spread all over it as he collapsed on the ground with a muffled sound.

Neji who was at the side looked at the entire process and was dumbfounded… in fact, it would be better to say that he was barely able to understand what exactly happened, as it happened in a very short time… And all he saw was Uchiha Shinichi's figure abruptly appearing in front of Sasuke, and the very next instant Sasuke's body flew out and crashed into the wall.

When Neji looked at Shinichi, he noticed that Shinichi didn't even have his Sharingan activated and couldn't help but mutter in shock, "Is this the true strength of a member of the Akatsuki Organization?"

At this time, a spiralling whirl appeared in the room, from which the masked man walked out, he casually glanced at Sasuke who had collapsed on the ground, and hadn't recovered yet, and said to Shinichi with a chuckle, "Shinichi, don't go too far…"

Shinichi said with a smile, "Don't worry, I am not going to kill them… I just wanted him to clearly see what the Shinobi World is like…"

The masked man narrowed his eyes slightly, he looked at Sasuke for a moment, then glanced at Neji on the other side, and finally turned towards Shinichi.

The masked man is quite curious, it is well known within Akatsuki that Shinichi is extremely lazy, careless, and sloppy, but suddenly he has become so attached to the two children that were kidnapped from Konoha. If it was just Sasuke, the masked man might still be able to accept it with a pinch of salt, after all, Sasuke is a genius Uchiha is worth training to be recruited into the Akatsuki Organization, but why Hyuga Neji?

Given Shinichi's arrogant and condescending character, he should be dismissive of Hyuga Neji, after all, Hyuga Neji is not only a member of the branch division of the Hyuga Clan, but he is also Hyuga Kuroto's disciple and the masked man knows that Shinichi has a grudge against Hyuga Kuroto… So why?

"Could it be…?!"

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