"I'll make this easier for you."
Renjiro's voice cut through the charged air like a blade—calm, almost bored, as if he were commenting on the weather rather than preparing for combat. Kakashi's hand froze, his eye narrowing with suspicion.
Renjiro spun the bo staff once, letting it settle naturally in his grip, the wood whispering through the air in a smooth arc. "I won't use my Sharingan."
A pause, deliberate and weighted. "I'll only use this."
Another pause. Longer this time. His gaze met Kakashi's with an expression that might have been amusement or might have been something far colder.
"If you can land a clean hit… I'll consider you ready."
The words landed not as encouragement but as an insult. A declaration that Kakashi, ANBU veteran, prodigy, holder of the Sharingan, was so far beneath notice that Renjiro would handicap himself to make the fight even remotely competitive.
Kakashi moved.
No hesitation. No warning. A blur of motion that ate distance in the space between heartbeats, his kunai aimed for the precise blind spot where Renjiro's peripheral vision should have failed.
It was ANBU-trained precision—efficient, lethal, the kind of strike that had ended dozens of missions before the target even knew they were under attack.
Renjiro didn't move much.
A slight shift of his stance. A fractional adjustment of weight. The staff flicked out—not a swing, not a strike, just a precise redirection of force.
"Clack!"
The kunai skittered harmlessly past, deflected by a movement so minimal it barely qualified as defence.
Kakashi recovered instantly, his body flowing into the next attack without pause. A low sweep aimed at Renjiro's ankles. The staff dropped, intercepting—clack—and suddenly the sweep became a liability as Renjiro used the contact to shift Kakashi's weight off-balance.
A feint to the left, then a strike to the right. The staff was there, always there, a barrier that seemed to anticipate every angle.
"Clack. Clack. THWIP."
The rhythm of combat was established—Kakashi attacking in rapid sequences, Renjiro controlling space with minimal movement. He didn't retreat. Didn't panic. Didn't do anything except exist in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, the staff becoming an extension of his will.
A barrier when needed.
A counterweight when useful.
A striking weapon when opportunity presented.
Kakashi tried a low sweep—Renjiro stepped over it, the staff tapping him lightly on the shoulder.
He tried an aerial attack—the staff intercepted him mid-flight, redirecting his momentum into the ground.
He tried feints, combinations, the kind of complex sequences that had overwhelmed S-rank missing-nin.
The staff was always there.
Each hit is controlled. Measured. Humiliating.
"You still don't respect me."
Renjiro's voice came between movements, calm and conversational, as if they were discussing philosophy rather than fighting.
"Clack."
"You think this is training."
"Tap."—shoulder.
"It's not."
Kakashi's jaw clenched. Frustration, hot and unfamiliar, burned in his chest. He had fought beside Renjiro in ANBU. Had seen him in action. Had thought he understood the gap between them.
He had been wrong.
His Sharingan activated.
The world sharpened. Colours intensified. Movements that had been blurs resolved into lines of possibility, the predictive capability of the dojutsu painting potential futures across his vision. He could see the staff's path now, could anticipate its strikes, could find the gaps in Renjiro's defence.
For a moment—just a moment—he almost landed a hit.
The staff shifted.
Its angle changed. Its timing broke. The rhythm that Kakashi had begun to predict suddenly became something else entirely—not faster, not slower, just different. Wrong in ways his newly-activated Sharingan couldn't quite track.
'He's controlling the pace entirely.'
The realisation hit like a physical blow. Renjiro wasn't reacting to Kakashi's attacks. He was conducting them. Every move Kakashi made had been anticipated, accounted for, woven into a larger pattern that Renjiro controlled from start to finish.
Even without the Sharingan.
Even with one hand tied behind his back, metaphorically speaking.
He was still ahead.
Always ahead.
Kakashi jumped back, creating distance. His hands flew through seals—faster than most shinobi could track—and the ground erupted.
"Doton: Doryūheki!"
An earth-style wall surged upward, meant to block the line of sight, create confusion, and buy time to regroup.
Renjiro moved through it.
Not dodging wildly, not using overwhelming force to blast through—just stepping through the smallest safe angles, the brief gaps in the technique's coverage that existed for anyone skilled enough to see them. The earth wall might as well have been made of paper.
He emerged on the other side, already closing distance, the staff a blur of motion.
"THWIP-THWIP-THWIP."
Kakashi was forced back. Then back again. Then, further, the staff drove him across the training ground like a leaf before the wind.
Breathing harder now. Frustration curdling into something sharper. More urgent.
'This isn't working. Nothing is working.'
Kakashi gathered chakra—lightning nature, the technique he had spent months perfecting, the one that had nearly killed him the first time he tried it. The sound built, a high-pitched shrieking that cut through the air like a physical thing.
"Chidori!"
Lightning arced across his palm, brilliant and deadly. The ground beneath his feet cracked as he launched himself forward, the technique's sheer speed making him a blur even to Sharingan-enhanced vision.
This was serious now. This was lethal.
And then—
Renjiro's hand came up.
Lightning gathered in his palm. The same crackling energy. The same brilliant glow. The same Chidori, formed perfectly, controlled absolutely, without a single hand seal, without any visible effort.
Kakashi's eye widened mid-charge.
'How?'
No Sharingan. No copying. No observation window. Just… replication.
This was the first person Kashi had ever seen replicate the jutsu apart from Minato-sensei and Jiraiya-sensei.
The two Chidori collided.
Lightning tore through the training ground in a devastating explosion of light and sound. Dust erupted outward in an expanding ring. The ground beneath them fractured, spiderwebs of cracks spreading in all directions. Nearby practice posts were shredded, their wooden surfaces splintering under the force of the discharge.
But Kakashi was pushed back.
Hard.
His feet carved furrows in the earth as he slid, struggling to maintain his balance, struggling to keep his footing, struggling to comprehend what had just happened.
He stabilised finally, breathing ragged, his mind racing.
'That's my jutsu. How was I the one pushed back?'
Unknown to him, Renjiro had already studied and mastered it years ago—before Kakashi had even perfected it, before it had become his signature technique. The Chidori was just another tool in an arsenal that Kakashi couldn't begin to comprehend.
Renjiro stepped forward slowly. Not rushing. Not gloating. Just… advancing.
Then—
Another chakra form appeared.
In his other hand.
The Rasengan.
Kakashi froze.
One hand: Chidori, crackling with lethal lightning.
The other hand: Rasengan, spinning with pure, concentrated force.
Both stable. Both complete. Both deadly.
Renjiro held them like they weighed nothing, like maintaining two of the most advanced techniques in existence simultaneously was no more difficult than breathing.
He moved.
Not fast. Not rushed. Just inevitable.
Kakashi tried to react—tried to bring his own Chidori up, tried to dodge, tried to do something—but his body was too slow, his mind too stunned, his reactions too mired in disbelief.
Too late.
Impact.
The force of the combined techniques—Renjiro had pulled them at the last moment, controlled them, directed them—sent Kakashi crashing into the ground. The explosion of chakra was deafening, a BOOM that echoed across the training ground and probably halfway across Konoha.
Dust rose in a thick cloud, obscuring everything.
Silence followed.
When the dust cleared, Renjiro stood over him.
Calm. Uninjured. Not even breathing hard. His clothes were immaculate, not a single scratch or scuff mark visible. He might have been taking a walk rather than just demolishing one of Konoha's most promising young jōnin.
He looked down at Kakashi with something approaching thoughtfulness.
"I'll need your feedback." A slight tilt of his head. "Which one felt stronger?"
Kakashi lay in the crater, his body aching, his mind spinning. He couldn't process it fully—the gap, the control, the sheer absurdity of what he had just witnessed.
'One weapon. No Sharingan. And still… overwhelming.'
He had underestimated Renjiro. Severely. Even during their ANBU days, serving together, fighting alongside each other—he had never seen this. Never understood it. Never realised that the man he thought he knew was something far beyond his comprehension.
Through the pain, through the shock, through the humiliating defeat, something clicked.
He had been arrogant. Not in the obvious way—not boastful or loud—but in the quiet assumption that he was special. That his genius, his Sharingan, his techniques put him in a category apart.
Renjiro had just demonstrated, with brutal clarity, how wrong that assumption was.
After a long moment, Renjiro spoke again. The same question as before, but now it carried weight—the weight of proven authority, of demonstrated capability.
"What do you really want to learn about the Sharingan?"
This time, there was no confusion. No sarcasm. No resistance.
Just honesty.
Kakashi pushed himself up slowly, his body protesting every movement. He met Renjiro's gaze, and for the first time, there was no pride in his eye. No defensiveness. No attempt to maintain the facade of unshakeable composure.
"Better control." His voice was rough, but steady. "Better prediction. Less chakra drain." A pause. "True mastery. Not dependence."
Everything he actually lacked. Everything he needed.
Renjiro listened. Studied him. Weighed the words against something only he could see.
Then he smiled slightly. Satisfied.
"Then…" A pause, letting the moment stretch. "Let's begin."
=====
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