Naruto: Starting with EMS

Chapter 7: A True Genius

Itō readily agreed to Nan's request to attend classes using a shadow clone. He had no reason to refuse.

In Itō's eyes, Nan was destined to become a great shinobi. As his teacher, the last thing he wanted was to become an obstacle on the boy's path to success.

He even promised that if any special circumstance ever required Nan's real body, he would notify him in advance.

With his teacher's assurance, Nan felt completely at ease. Not only had he secured a legitimate excuse for skipping class, but he had also freed himself from attending in person altogether. He couldn't help but mentally applaud his own cleverness.

He nodded to his teacher in farewell, casually adding that he was only a shadow clone—and then turned and walked back into the classroom.

Itō was speechless.

Of course, there were still things Nan hadn't told him. While he now possessed chakra on par with a jōnin, maintaining a shadow clone capable of prolonged study wasn't exactly easy.

But then again, Nan had no real intention of learning anything at the Academy. Uchiha Nan had already studied most of the curriculum on his own in preparation for early graduation, and anything else he needed, he had already obtained from Han's memories.

The classmates in his year were all forgettable background characters—none of them even had names in the original series. Nan had absolutely no desire to interact with them.

As a result, he barely allocated any chakra to the clone. It didn't need to move much—just enough to maintain its form and appearance, serving as a decoy.

To him, the Ninja Academy was a complete waste of time. If it weren't for the fear of drawing too much attention, Nan would've already applied for early graduation.

He already possessed significant power, but much of that stemmed from his Mangekyō Sharingan—something he absolutely could not afford to expose.

The abilities inherited from Han were safer to use. After all, they were brothers, and most of Han's jutsu were passed down from their father. It would be entirely plausible for Nan to have learned them as well.

Still, he was too young to openly display advanced techniques. It would look unnatural. Nan needed time to gradually build up his reputation.

So for now, the best approach was to only reveal the abilities Uchiha Nan had possessed prior to awakening his Sharingan. Then, slowly, through "training" and "growth," he could display his genius bit by bit—something people would more easily accept.

In truth, Uchiha Nan had already shown shocking talent even before awakening. He was known as the youngest medical-nin in history.

As previously mentioned, Nan had actually awakened his Sharingan the moment he learned of his mother's death—he just hadn't realized it. Much like Sasuke in the original story, he had never consciously activated or used it.

But Nan wasn't an ordinary child. From that moment on, the memories of his past life began to awaken slowly, and with them came the accumulated spiritual strength of over twenty years of life experience.

And since spiritual energy is directly linked to ocular power, his Sharingan also grew stronger.

As it is well known, chakra is formed from the combination of physical energy and mental strength. So as Nan's spiritual energy surged, his chakra reserves also increased dramatically.

Thanks to his powerful ocular abilities and abundant chakra, he accidentally activated the Sharingan during training—and not just a single tomoe, but two tomoe in each eye.

This shocked the entire Uchiha clan. A five-year-old with a two-tomoe Sharingan—such a thing had never occurred in clan history.

Previously, the youngest to awaken the Sharingan was Shisui, who had done so at the age of seven, and even then, he only had a single tomoe.

Overnight, Nan surpassed Shisui and became the Uchiha clan's undisputed number one prodigy—perhaps even the greatest genius in all of Konoha.

The Uchiha clan began to shower him with attention. Resources were poured into him, and even many high-level clan techniques—ninjutsu and genjutsu alike—were opened to him.

Nan did not disappoint. He quickly mastered Fire Release techniques and even learned a number of the clan's genjutsu. The only area where he lagged was taijutsu, due to his still-developing body.

By the time of Han's attack, even without activating the Sharingan, Nan's strength already exceeded that of a typical genin.

With his two-tomoe Sharingan active, he could even defeat some chūnin. Especially in genjutsu—most standard jōnin would find it difficult to overpower him using illusions.

So, the fact that Han—just a tokubetsu jōnin—was able to seriously injure Nan was largely thanks to the surprise attack. Nan hadn't had his guard up against his own brother.

If they had fought head-on, Nan still might not have won, but Han certainly wouldn't have found it so easy.

Nan's fame wasn't limited to the Uchiha clan. His reputation as their greatest prodigy had already spread throughout the entire village.

Naturally, someone like Uchiha Madara—who had been closely monitoring the Uchiha—was well aware. In his eyes, Nan was more than qualified to be his successor.

But Madara was already old. He couldn't afford to wait for Nan to grow up. So instead, he settled for the next best thing—Han, who shared the most similar genes. And that was what set the tragic chain of events in motion.

Nan had no idea that Madara had long since set his sights on him.

Nor did he realize that the true reason behind Han's betrayal was simply this:

Nan was too much of a genius.

In Nan's opinion, since his previous self had already achieved a level close to that of a chūnin, if he simply laid low for another year, then displaying strength on par with a tokubetsu jōnin—or even a full jōnin—wouldn't seem all that unnatural anymore.

After all, the current Nan had inherited the full abilities of both his former self and Uchiha Han. While neither of them were particularly powerful individually—without the Sharingan, one was a skilled genin, the other a capable chūnin—when combined, their strength was roughly equivalent to a tokubetsu jōnin. Especially in terms of chakra, he already had the reserves of a full-fledged jōnin.

Even without revealing his Mangekyō, just relying on his regular Sharingan, he could be considered a solid jōnin-level ninja.

Nan's plan was simple: within a year, he would elevate his Fire Release techniques to jōnin-level, and then find a way to patch up his last shortcoming—taijutsu.

By that time, even without using the Sharingan, he would possess the strength of a jōnin. That way, if he graduated and entered the battlefield, he'd have more than enough power to protect himself—without ever needing to reveal his Mangekyō.

As long as he didn't run into a Kage-level opponent, even facing elite jōnin wouldn't be a problem. Worst case, he could always reveal the three-tomoe Sharingan.

With the genjutsu of a three-tomoe Sharingan, who among the non-Kage could possibly stand against him? From the outside, it would simply look like he had awakened two tomoe early—and now, after a year or two, had naturally progressed to three. No one would suspect anything about the Mangekyō.

Though the plan sounded solid, Nan understood that making it a reality wouldn't be easy.

His previous self hadn't studied much genjutsu, and Han wasn't particularly skilled in that area either. Nan would have to put in a lot of work himself—but he wasn't worried.

With his immense spiritual strength and the enhanced ocular power granted by the Mangekyō, even his normal three-tomoe Sharingan had reached an absurd level. So in truth, genjutsu would probably be the easiest discipline for him to master.

Next was Fire Release. As the Uchiha clan's signature element aside from the Sharingan, both Nan and Han had already been proficient in it.

With both their abilities combined, Nan's fire-style ninjutsu was already not far off from jōnin-level. With focused training, he was confident he could raise it within a year.

The only area where he lacked confidence was taijutsu.

Taijutsu depended heavily on the body's physical energy—which was different from spiritual energy.

Spiritual energy was intangible. After absorbing Han's soul, Nan had instantly gained access to all of Han's spiritual power.

But physical energy existed within the body itself. Even though he had absorbed Han's physical power, the Reincarnation Technique couldn't immediately make his own body mature.

Unless Nan used his Mangekyō to transform into Han's adult body, the physical energy would remain compressed and stored within him. He would still need to train gradually, over time, as his body developed and absorbed it bit by bit.

But he was only six years old this year. Even a year from now, he'd only be seven—still far from physical maturity.

The extra reserves of physical energy would certainly help accelerate his progress in taijutsu, but only to a limited extent.

Realistically, based on his current foundation, it would be a challenge to even reach chūnin-level taijutsu within a year—let alone jōnin.

"It's not entirely impossible... I am a ninja, after all. If standard taijutsu doesn't work, why not try nintaijutsu?"

Nan quickly thought of an alternative.

If he wanted to see this plan through, he'd have to carefully consider every move.