"You're so annoying! You want to go, huh?!"
Obito glared angrily into the silver-haired boy's dead-fish eyes.
"What was that? You're clearly the one in the wrong."
Kakashi crossed his arms, giving him a contemptuous side-eye.
"Say that again, you idiot!"
Obito looked furious.
Nearby, Rin watched them with a knowing, motherly smile.
Motomu's lips twitched; he finally understood.
Just by standing there, he had become part of their little three-way dynamic.
While Motomu was lost in thought, Obito finally spotted him outside the school gates from a distance.
"Brother! Go on ahead; I've still got a battle to finish here."
"Heh, as long as you're confident."
Uchiha Motomu turned his head and walked away.
The pleasant afternoon passed quickly.
Outside the Uchiha compound.
At dusk, Motomu walked alone, stepping on his own shadow as he headed toward the Konoha training grounds.
The Uchiha compound was on the outskirts of Konoha, and even further out were the forty-four training grounds. Motomu's goal wasn't the infamous Training Ground 44, known as the Forest of Death, but the safer Training Ground 7 right next to it.
Besides buying ninja tools during the day, he had spent most of his time scouting locations in the forest.
As Motomu delved deeper into the dim forest, the number of shinobi training there gradually thinned out.
By the time he reached his destination, there wasn't a soul in sight.
He cracked his neck with a soft pop.
Motomu's Right Eye flew out of his socket and gradually expanded.
The massive eyeball, adorned with blood-red color and tomoe, reappeared.
Motomu stared at it, and it stared back.
Motomu looked away.
'The flying Sharingan... I lose it every time I see this thing.'
The art style of this thing felt completely out of place, like the Eye of Cthulhu flying around at night in Terraria.
Despite his internal complaints, Motomu quickly shifted into a combat mindset.
Whether he could make a name for himself in the upcoming assessment and secure next month's investment from his esteemed Clan Head—the great leader of the Uchiha, his own father, Uchiha Tetsuya—depended on this.
Motomu had tried training on his own that afternoon, testing the Sharingan's capabilities.
However, he sadly discovered that the spiritual energy boost from a single-tomoe Sharingan wasn't as miraculous as he had imagined.
His chakra was limited by his body; it had only increased a tiny bit. To put it simply, instead of being able to climb trees five times, he could now manage ten.
His limit had doubled, but it was still pitifully low.
His dynamic vision was strong, but missing one Sharingan meant the clarity between his eyes was too different. Looking at things for too long even caused double vision.
In a real fight, for the sake of stability, Motomu would have to close one eye and sacrifice his field of vision.
While his thoughts raced.
Motomu had already reached the base of a large tree where birds were chirping.
Drawing a senbon from the pouch at the small of his back, Motomu's gaze sharpened as he commanded the giant eyeball to ascend.
The bird on the branch stopped chirping. Sensing approaching danger, it immediately took flight.
*Swish!*
Motomu took aim and flicked his wrist, sending the senbon flying.
His form was cool and his movements were fast, but the little bird was only slightly startled as it dodged.
Watching the giant eyeball wobbling slowly behind the bird, Motomu felt a surge of disappointment at its poor performance.
'Calm down.'
Philosophy from his high school politics class in his previous life had taught Motomu that the difference between humans and animals is consciousness.
And one of the functions of consciousness is reflection.
The Thinker, Uchiha Motomu, quickly identified the root of the problem.
Compared to yesterday, his equipment had improved.
But the Pidgeys in the Konoha training grounds nested too high; the giant eyeball couldn't reach them before the system's overworld encounter mechanic triggered.
'I need a way to camouflage the eyeball.'
A few minutes later, Motomu endured a strange sensation in his optic nerve.
He covered the giant eyeball with leaves.
"This should do it."
With a constant feeling of grit in his eye, Motomu wasn't in the mood to admire his handiwork.
He immediately controlled the giant eyeball and headed toward the next tree where birds were chirping.
This time, it was a success.
The giant eyeball lurked in the shadows of the branches, creeping close to a Pidgey.
[DING]
Along with high-energy music, a system prompt different from yesterday's popped up. Motomu guessed it was the difference between a visible encounter and a hidden one.
[A WILD PIDGEY (LEVEL 3) HAS APPEARED]
[YOUR RIGHT EYE (LEVEL 2) HAS PROVOKED IT]
[WILD PIDGEY (LEVEL 3) USED SCRATCH!]
[IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE!]
[RIGHT EYE WAS SCRATCHED!]
[HP -3]
[BATTLE FAILED]
[RIGHT EYE HAS LEARNED FROM THE EXPERIENCE]
[RIGHT EYE EXPERIENCE +7]
"Holy crap."
*Hiss!*
Motomu clutched his eye and crouched on the ground in pain.
"This Pidgey... it's got some kick to it!"
Enduring the pain, Motomu first checked the giant eyeball's injury, finding three claw marks on the right side that had pierced its outer wall.
The transparent vitreous humor inside the eye looked as if it were about to leak out.
In a high-level map like the wild training grounds, higher-level Pidgeys gave more experience, but they were also far more dangerous than anything in the starter village of the clan compound.
Motomu was well aware of this; in fact, it was exactly why he had come!
To not just survive the upcoming assessment, but to win.
His strength had to surpass the majority of his peers.
He currently had a very clear benchmark for strength: Might Guy.
Guy's strength in the early days had been acknowledged by Hatake Sakumo!
He remembered that in the story, Guy and his father had bumped into Kakashi and Sakumo at the school gates.
At that time, Sakumo had praised Guy, saying his strength would soon catch up to Kakashi's. The young Kakashi hadn't thought much of it then.
But Motomu knew that Sakumo, as a powerhouse, had already seen something special in Guy.
From this, one could infer that Guy's actual combat performance at the time was definitely among the top of the Ninja Academy.
It made sense; someone who could do 500 laps around Konoha on their hands might be lacking in the brains department, but their raw strength was definitely no joke.
Thus, the path forward was clear for Motomu: reaching or exceeding Guy's level was his primary goal before the test began tomorrow!
As for how to surpass someone who was fifty percent stronger and faster than him in all aspects within a single night...
Motomu's only option was to resort to a risky gambit: rapidly level up his Right Eye Pokémon to obtain a trump card for actual combat—a Pokémon Move!
"It's about time. Let's try heavily wounding the Pidgey before engaging this time."
Catching his breath as the pain subsided, Uchiha Motomu stood back up.
Brushing the dust off his pants, he looked toward the next large tree.
Since the sun had sunk below the horizon, the birds on the treetops were becoming less active.
Motomu turned on his shinobi flashlight and aimed it at the branches.
As a country kid in his previous life, Motomu had spent plenty of time shooting birds with slingshots.
At night, if you aimed a flashlight at a sparrow, the bird would be momentarily blinded by the bright light and wouldn't dare to fly.
His past experiences were still useful today.
Motomu saw the Pidgey caught in the flashlight beam freeze up. Dazed by the light, it hunkered down like a hen, its claws gripping the branch tightly.
*Swish!*
The senbon flew out, piercing it clean through!