When Uchiha Feiyu returned to Konoha, he'd actually been in a pretty good mood—at first.
But he quickly noticed something was off with the village's atmosphere.
Not long ago, Konoha's shinobi had moved with the same hurried pace, faces serious as always, but there had still been a quiet confidence in the air, a high, rolling morale born from decades of never losing a great war.
Now though…
People were still rushing around, but there was a jittery edge to it. Their expressions, once stern yet sure, now seemed stiff and vaguely panicked.
"Looks like something's gone wrong in Konoha… hmm, eight or nine times out of ten, that means the front lines are in trouble."
As Feiyu was thinking this, his gaze swept past five familiar little shinobi.
"Kakashi, Asuma… all of you are here too? Long time no see."
"You're… Feiyu!!"
The ones Feiyu had stopped were exactly that little group of ten-ish-year-old genin—his old classmates.
On Konoha's busy street, the small group of fresh-faced brats, barely out of childhood, all stared at the young man before them with open delight.
Feiyu was now a full fifteen years old. After half a year of war on the front lines, followed by fusing a bloodline limit and evolving his bloodline, he looked no different from a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old.
His classmates, on the other hand, were still only ten or eleven. Even though they'd seen their share of conflict in wartime, as underage shinobi they hadn't yet been thrown onto the true front lines—Konoha hadn't been desperate enough yet—so they still carried traces of childishness.
Standing together, they looked almost like two separate generations. Feiyu might as well have been their jōnin instructor.
At Yakiniku Q, Feiyu ordered more than a dozen plates of grilled meat. Watching the little group dig in, he asked:
"Enough? Want me to order more?"
"No, no, that's enough. We're not from the Akimichi clan—we can't eat that much."
Kurenai waved her hands quickly, her expression a little excited.
After all, Uchiha Feiyu right now wasn't just their former classmate, and definitely not that older repeat student people used to mock. He was now the famous "Little White Fang", the "Konoha Ghost", a powerful shinobi renowned across the village.
Even their old instructor Hyūga Hizashi couldn't compare to Feiyu anymore, whether in reputation or strength. Watching their former peer soar into the sky like this, both Yūhi Kurenai and Sarutobi Asuma felt like they were dreaming.
In contrast, Hatake Kakashi, Obito, and Guy didn't react much. Some of them were naturally cool-headed; others were just carefree with big hearts. None of them particularly cared about Feiyu's "status upgrade."
"Anyway, I just got back to Konoha and something feels off. The whole village's atmosphere is strange. And why are you 'little shinobi' all gathered together? Did something big happen?"
"Why are we 'little shinobi'? Feiyu, aren't we classmates? We started learning ninjutsu at the same time—how did we suddenly become 'little'?"
Obito shouted in protest, looking utterly offended.
Feiyu rolled his eyes.
"Okay, okay. Then let this elite shinobi explain to me what's been going on lately, yeah?"
Obito froze, scratched his head, then turned to Kakashi.
"Kakashi, did something happen? I didn't feel anything different at all…"
Kakashi gave him a long, helpless look.
"Obito, you really are dense."
"We just ran into each other by chance. Obito, Rin, and I are in the same squad now. We bumped into Asuma and Kurenai while they were out shopping, so we were just catching up."
"As for the big stuff… I only know things aren't going well on the front. Sounds like something happened on the Cloud front. If you want details, you should ask Asuma."
Kakashi might be a famous prodigy in Konoha, already close to true jōnin in strength, but he hadn't been to the front lines, and his standing in the village wasn't high enough to get full intel. So what he knew was limited.
Asuma, on the other hand, was much weaker than Kakashi in a fight and hadn't even made Chunin yet—but as the Hokage's son, no one really believed he knew nothing about the war.
Hearing Kakashi dump it on him, Asuma's face twisted into a wry smile. He set his chopsticks down.
"Kakashi, you… ever heard of the concept of classified information?"
"If we're talking about classified info, how could a genin like you know more than me, a tokubetsu jōnin?"
"Since even you know, that 'classification' is already half out the window, isn't it?"
Kakashi's tone was half-mocking, half self-deprecating. Asuma flushed.
"Fine, fine, I get it. I'll talk."
"From what I've heard, Konoha suffered a big defeat at the front. The entire Cloud front line was completely broken through. At least three thousand shinobi died."
"The situation at the front is really bad. It wouldn't be surprising if our entire graduating class—the ones who just finished the Academy a year ago—got sent to the front next."
As soon as he said that, the whole table fell silent.
After a while, Nohara Rin finally asked in a small, trembling voice:
"If it's that serious… how come we never heard anything?"
"Yeah… why didn't we hear anything…"
Asuma's voice carried a mix of bitterness and resignation as he muttered back.
"Tch, isn't it obvious? This is defeat we're talking about, not victory. How could the higher-ups broadcast that so easily?"
"What if it hurts morale? What if it affects the other fronts? What if it affects… their ability to recruit cannon fodder?"
There was no doubt who said that—Uchiha Feiyu, of course.
The moment the words landed, a variety of expressions flashed across the kids' faces.
Most of them looked shocked or unconvinced.
Asuma, though, stiffened and showed a hint of shame.
Kakashi, face still calm as ever, spoke with that tone halfway between warning and complaint:
"Feiyu, you really like talking nonsense. Careful, or the ANBU might cut you down for 'spreading panic and damaging morale.'"
Feiyu shrugged.
Personally, he didn't care about any "crime of hurting morale." Konoha's top brass definitely wouldn't risk a real falling-out with a Kage-level shinobi over one sarcastic remark.
But for these kids, words like that could leave a mark. So, in the end, he laughed it off.
"Sorry, sorry. Sometimes my mouth just runs away on its own."
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