Uchiha Chiri, who would one day develop Izanami and end the Uchiha Clan's internal strife,
was already showing impressive talent.
Three days ago, the conversation between her father and grandfather had left her feeling disgruntled toward Uchiha Hikaru.
But today's physical assessment shook her confidence just a little.
While a single test couldn't prove much, Uchiha Hikaru looked like he had only just finished warming up—completely relaxed.
Meanwhile, Chiri herself was drenched in sweat, if not outright exhausted.
The contrast was stark.
She also knew that Uchiha Hikaru had activated the Three-Tomoe Sharingan—known as the Copy Eye and Illusion Eye.
So in terms of ninjutsu and genjutsu, she couldn't compete.
With ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu all surpassed, no matter how unwilling she felt to accept it, the iron-clad reality was that—
Right now, Uchiha Hikaru was stronger.
Her gaze dimmed for a moment, but she quickly pulled herself together.
She believed she would one day surpass Uchiha Hikaru.
At that moment, Toki Chi approached.
"Look at yourselves. Barely a few passed. You lot are the worst class I've ever led!"
"Get up. I'm taking you to your homeroom."
And with that, he walked off without waiting to see if anyone could stand.
The students sprawled on the floor, unwilling to move, groaned in protest but scrambled to their feet.
Wobbling upright, they trudged after him dejectedly.
Toki Chi glanced back at the students—none had fallen behind.
A faint smile flickered at the corner of his mouth, though he quickly returned to his usual stern expression.
Before long, he led them to a classroom.
He told them to find their own seats and stood silently at the podium.
Intimidated by Toki Chi's stern presence, the students quickly found places and sat down without fuss.
Uchiha Hikaru had Chiri to his left and Tsunade to his right.
He didn't know this Uchiha girl and hadn't expected her to sit beside him.
Once everyone was seated, Toki Chi began to speak:
"Today is the first day of school. You don't know each other yet, so this period will be for introductions."
"I'll go first. My name is Toki Chi. I'm a Chūnin of Konoha. I like spicy food. My dream is to train you into the pillars of Konoha. That's all!"
"Use my intro as a template. Who wants to go first?"
The students looked around uneasily—no one wanted to be the first.
Tsunade, however, didn't hesitate. The moment she heard him, she stood up.
"I'll go! My name is Senju Tsunade. I like sweets, and my dream is to become the first female Hokage of Konoha!"
Toki Chi clapped after hearing that and nodded in approval at her ambition.
At that moment, Uchiha Chiri stood as well.
"My name is Uchiha Chiri. I like ramen. My current dream is to surpass a certain someone."
As she spoke, she glanced toward Uchiha Hikaru.
And Hikaru froze the moment he heard her name.
He hadn't expected that the only female to ever awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan in the anime would be in the same class as him.
Uchiha Chiri might even have more talent than Itachi.
You could argue that Itachi's combat strength might surpass hers,
but when it came to raw talent—she who created Izanami to counter Izanagi was undoubtedly stronger.
And now she was sitting right beside him.
It felt like fate had handed her to him on a silver platter.
Hikaru was speechless.
Everything in the past few days had gone too smoothly—so smoothly that it made him uneasy.
He had planned to seek out gifted individuals to train… and now both Tsunade and Uchiha Chiri had appeared of their own accord.
He had wanted to keep a low profile and grow slowly,
and now Mito Uzumaki had come to adopt him, saving him the trouble of worrying about early-stage survival.
Everything was going better than expected—too well, in fact.
'Could something be wrong?'
Hikaru muttered inwardly, and his thoughts turned to the Great Toad Sage.
'Looks like I need to find a way to test things.'
He thought of the Sage of Six Paths, who watched the shinobi world from the Pure Land,
and decided to test whether the Great Toad Sage's prophecies were truly absolute.
The test was simple: he was already a butterfly flapping its wings—
the future of the shinobi world was bound to change.
Once Jiraiya became the Great Toad Sage's prophet, a prophecy would be given to him.
If it was still the same prophecy, that would mean the Great Toad Sage wasn't all that powerful—and the Sage of Six Paths wasn't as godlike as imagined.
But if the prophecy changed, or even included Hikaru himself,
that would mean the Sage of Six Paths was the will of the shinobi world—a being who could truly perceive timelines.
Just imagining it made Hikaru break out in a cold sweat.
But then again, the second scenario seemed extremely unlikely.
If the Sage of Six Paths was that powerful, he would have intervened the moment Hikaru crossed over into this world.
Otherwise, the future was bound to deviate from his original script—
Who could even say whether Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha would still be born?
Still, a proper test was necessary.
Hikaru decided to help Jiraiya form a summoning contract with Mount Myōboku earlier than in canon.
As for whether that would mess up Jiraiya's destination, he wasn't worried.
Rather than Jiraiya being lucky enough to summon himself to Mount Myōboku,
it was more accurate to say the toads summoned him.
Just as the Great Toad Sage once chose the Sage of Six Paths,
Jiraiya was the chosen prophet of this generation.
The outcome existed first—Jiraiya was meant to go to Mount Myōboku.
Only then did he successfully summon himself there.
Otherwise, what were the odds of that happening randomly? One in a million?
So-called coincidences were often just well-designed inevitabilities.
While Hikaru was still thinking of how to coax Jiraiya,
he suddenly felt someone tug on his sleeve.
Snapping out of his thoughts, Hikaru looked around—
the whole class was staring at him.
Tsunade was rolling her eyes at him—it was her who had tugged on him.
'Looks like I'm the last one left to introduce myself.'
Realizing that, Hikaru stood and scratched the back of his head with a sheepish smile.
"Sorry, I spaced out just now."
"My name is Uchiha Hikaru. I like spicy food. As for my dream…"
He glanced at Tsunade, then grinned:
"My dream is to become the man who becomes Hokage!"
The pause in his sentence was subtle, but except for Toki Chi, the rest of the class were just kids—no one noticed.
And the dream of becoming Hokage was so common that half the class had the same goal. No one paid attention to the nuance.
Toki Chi, however, caught on.
His stern expression almost slipped.
He quickly coughed and gave Hikaru a long, meaningful look.
"Alright. Now that everyone's introduced themselves, that's the end of this period. Take a ten-minute break."