Chapter 8 The Prodigy’s Prowess

"Ooh…"

His classmates sat in a row, dumbstruck. Even the teacher, a little ways off taking notes, forgot to call on the next student in his disbelief.

The class was basically a test to see how many of the twenty human figures set up all over the schoolyard a student could hit with kunai in a short period of time. Each student took a turn individually.

His classmates before him had all run around the schoolyard at top speed, managing to complete the task in just over five minutes, panting all the while. Before the class started, they had shown the location of the human figures; all of them were in annoying places like the top of the tallest tree or behind a half-open window on the third floor. So everyone raced around frantically and managed to do it in an average of five minutes.

Itachi had done it in thirty seconds. And all his kunai hit the figures precisely in the head or the chest, in almost exactly the same place each time; the slight differences were only due to the differences in how much of the figure was actually exposed. His kunai had all hit with almost flawless accuracy.

We know where the figures are, and all of them can be reached from the schoolyard…

The students before Itachi finished the test, limited by these factors.

His study of them, and the plan he crafted in response, were impeccable. From the starting point in the center of the schoolyard, Itachi drew a line in his mind to split the range into four, and then further roughly divided up the areas of concentration of the targets, before he categorized these as ones he could reach from the starting point and ones he would need to move to hit. There were twelve that required him to move.

He then sorted the targets that required movement and calculated a trajectory that would allow him to go round with the most efficiency.

As the teacher gave the start signal, Itachi launched the eight kunai he held in both hands at eight human figures simultaneously. That didn't even take two seconds. From there, he started running, tracing out the route he had pictured in his head, and made a swift tour of the yard.

Thirty seconds.

Itachi felt like it almost took too long. Shisui could have done it faster.

"W-well done. All right, next up," the teacher said, sweat rolling down his forehead.

Without responding, Itachi returned to his place among the excited students. His performance had been so incredible that no one could say a word directly to him. They circled him from a distance and whispered to each other.

Unaware of this reaction, Itachi reflected on the results of the trial he had just completed. Before his eyes, the next student was racing frantically around the yard.

I could shave another five seconds off… He found a place where he could correct the trajectory of his run and felt ashamed of his immaturity.