"So, you actually spotted me?"
An indifferent voice drifted down from above. A figure dropped from the canopy, landing with practiced ease.
A Konoha forehead protector sat neatly across his brow. Scarlet Sharingan eyes glared coldly at Zenji.
Uchiha Seisho.
Zenji's pupils contracted sharply.
Of all people, it had to be an Uchiha.
He pressed his lips into a thin line, fists clenching silently at his sides. He said nothing.
The moment their eyes met, a cold sneer curled at the corners of Seisho's mouth.
It had been a long time since anyone dared meet his gaze so directly.
The single tomoe in each eye began to rotate slowly. His genjutsu activated without a sound.
But in the next instant, Seisho's smile froze.
The naked young man before him maintained his silent, vigilant posture—completely unaffected.
Zenji had merely tensed slightly, bracing for an attack that could come at any moment. He seemed entirely unaware that an invisible assault had just washed over him.
Aren't the Uchiha supposed to be cold and aloof? he thought. This guy's expressions are all over the place.
Seisho's hands blurred through seals. Chakra surged into his throat, and he exhaled a massive ball of fire.
Zenji's glowing blue eyes detected the chakra mobilization instantly.
He pushed off hard, diving to the side.
The scorching fireball slammed into his previous position, engulfing the small campfire and incinerating his drying clothes in a rush of hungry flames.
A taijutsu specialist, Seisho concluded, drawing a kunai as he charged forward.
Zenji steadied himself, watching the Uchiha close the distance. The image of Seisho's hand seals and chakra condensation flashed through his mind with perfect clarity.
His own hands moved, forming seals. Chakra gathered in his throat.
Seisho's eyes went wide—especially when a giant fireball came roaring toward him.
"Impossible!"
He dodged frantically, barely avoiding the blast. His composure shattered.
It wasn't that someone had copied his technique—that happened. What defied all logic was how.
The hand seals had been wrong. Several steps were missing entirely. There was no way the technique should have worked.
But Zenji didn't care about any of that. Once he'd grasped the underlying method of chakra condensation, the hand seals became irrelevant.
He opened his mouth wide and unleashed fireball after fireball.
Each blazing sphere grew larger than the last, raining down from every angle. The moment they struck the ground, flames erupted outward in expanding waves of heat.
Seisho scrambled desperately to avoid the barrage.
His cold arrogance had vanished completely, replaced by frustration and mounting rage.
"Damn it! How is this possible?"
"I refuse to accept this!"
"How could some clanless nobody—a piece of trash—learn the Great Fireball Technique with a single glance?!"
His heart burned as if consumed by his own flames. Negative emotions flooded through him, and his eyes grew increasingly bloodshot.
Something's wrong. Zenji's guard rose sharply. Even if the Uchiha are prone to emotional instability, losing control this quickly isn't normal.
A sudden, intense pain lanced through his chest. A cooling sensation spread across the affected area, and the surrounding heat seemed to be forcibly drawn inward, forming some kind of equilibrium.
Zenji focused his attention on his chest and immediately identified the problem.
Spitting out fireball after fireball had looked impressive, but it consumed enormous amounts of chakra.
He'd disrupted the balance in his chest. A gap had formed in the stored chakra, and the cells in that region were being squeezed even harder than before.
That was the source of the pain. Fortunately, the Tiger Talisman—weakened though it was—could easily restore this kind of minor imbalance.
I still don't fully understand my body's condition. I can't burn through chakra like that anymore.
Zenji ceased his assault and charged forward, using the last fireball as cover.
Through his blue-tinted vision, he saw that Seisho's overall chakra had dropped by half, its glow noticeably dimmer.
More importantly, another humanoid chakra signature had appeared underground.
Shadow Clone? Zenji's eyes sharpened.
Only that technique divided chakra equally between copies. Every other clone method used just a small portion.
That equal division made Shadow Clones incredibly deceptive. So which one was real—the figure before him, or the one below?
Zenji clenched his fist and attacked the visible Uchiha. Without knowing which was genuine, he had no choice but to commit fully.
His chakra-enhanced blow slammed into Seisho's face. The tremendous force sent his entire body hurtling backward.
Poof!
Mid-flight, the body dissolved into smoke.
Beneath him, a pair of hands erupted from the earth, grasping for his ankles.
But Zenji was already prepared.
In that critical instant, he stomped down with everything he had.
The greater the crisis, the sharper his condition became. Chakra flowed with exceptional smoothness. His leg muscles, his mental commands, his energy circulation—all of it synchronized at a higher level than ever before.
A streak of black light flickered over the blue chakra coating his heel.
The moment it touched the ground, space itself seemed to distort.
CRACK.
A shockwave rippled outward. One wave drove into the earth; another radiated up through Zenji's entire body.
Seisho's hands went rigid. His palms slumped lifelessly against the soil.
Zenji felt better than he ever had. The connection between his spirit, body, and chakra had tightened further. His perception seemed capable of detecting the profound mystery where all three overlapped.
The brief entry in the Book of Ages regarding Black Flash execution burst open under his intense focus, flooding his mind with knowledge.
I understand now. A flash of insight illuminated his thoughts. The chakra-based Black Flash isn't just high-frequency resonance—it's the manifestation of chakra's true essence.
Connection.
Chakra is the power that connects people. That was how the Sage of Six Paths had originally defined it.
Even after a thousand years of change, that fundamental truth remained.
Connection was one of chakra's most essential characteristics.
That explains everything. Zenji examined his own body with new understanding.
His cells were generating energy uncontrollably, forming chakra in his meridians, which then converged on the cell walls. Body, spirit, and chakra—all three were inherently compressed together.
Whether it was an active body pushed by high-intensity movement, a spirit honed to razor focus, or chakra circulating at heightened frequency—any of these could break through normal boundaries and connect intimately with the other two.
That was what made Black Flash easier to execute.
If an ordinary person's probability of achieving a chakra-based Black Flash was one, then for Zenji's transformed body, it was eighty-one times higher.
What was meant to be a reaper's scythe hanging over my neck has instead granted me incredible power. He let out a quiet, ironic breath.
Reaching down, he grabbed Seisho's hands and hauled him out of the loose soil.
This was an Uchiha. A living Uchiha.
The experimental value was immense.
He couldn't just let this opportunity slip away.