Following the celebration of Chiyo's life the next day, the Konoha Ninja were promptly teleported back to Konoha by Naruto, appearing inside the Hokage's office.
"I'm assuming everything went well?"
Tsunade asked, seeing that they were all relatively alright, holding out her hand and accepting a mission report compiled by Gai, all the events from both sides listed in the scroll.
"Good, very well done."
Tsunade produced slips for exchange so that they could collect their mission pay at the mission desk in the room below the Hokage's office.
"Lady Tsunade, have you heard from Kakashi-sensei or Sasuke?"
Sakura asked, having felt anxious about this for a while now, but they had been on a mission, so she put those thoughts to the back of her head.
Tsunade looked at everyone gathered here, locking eyes with each of them.
"I want it to be known that what I'm about to reveal is not to leave this room under any circumstances. The only time I permit you to talk of this is inside my office and inside the seals of the workshop Kakashi made, got that?"
Everyone nodded. Most were nervous, caring a great deal for Kakashi and Sasuke.
"Kakashi and Sasuke were ambushed by an army of one hundred thousand identical beings, followed by a person who used Wood Release with ease," Tsunade revealed. "Kakashi is in a sort of coma, but he's perfectly fine. By all accounts, he should've already woken up. Sasuke is alive and well. He's sitting by Kakashi's bedside right now and hasn't left his sensei's side since."
She left out the changes Kakashi's body was going through. Yesterday, she had to use very fine chakra to pierce his skin for a simple blood test. His durability had increased, as had his chakra. What used to be around the level of a tailed beast was now perhaps only surpassed by the Eight and Nine-Tails in pure reserves. Tsunade wasn't entirely sure if her estimate was accurate, not knowing the true extent of most tailed beasts. Still, Kakashi's overall capacity and durability had greatly increased. As for his outward physical changes, he had grown a couple of inches, which was odd for someone his age. It was truly never a dull moment with him.
"One-Hundred thousand?!"
Gai's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head; that number was larger than the combined numbers of the Five Great Nations.
"Wood Release?! It couldn't be someone from the Senju clan, right?"
Sakura spoke up, though even she doubted her question before asking; she knew from being as close to Tsunade as she was that the Senju were all but long gone, the bloodline having assimilated into the regular civilian population long ago; the likelihood of one of them awakening Wood Release was very low.
"I'm not ruling anything out at this point, but it's more likely to be some experiment with my grandfather's cells; whoever it is must have at least some Senju blood or an abnormal physique."
While the rest of them thought about it, Karin was passively monitoring the hospital where Kakashi stood, immediately noticing the signatures of Sasuke and Kakashi.
'Kakashi-Sensei…. His chakra is like that of a tailed beast; it reminds me of Naruto's when he's using the chakra of the Nine-Tails, though this feeling, unlike the Nine-Tails, is comforting. Even from here, I can feel it.'
"Karin."
Naruto lightly shook Karin, having called out to her many times now; only now did she snap out of it.
"What had you so spaced out?"
"It's Kakashi-sensei's chakra; it feels warm, like yours, Naruto, but different."
Karin replied, Gai and his team a bit lost, not really understanding the 'warmth' Karin was talking about, but Naruto knew what she meant more than anyone.
"Nothing bad?"
Naruto asked, wondering if Kakashi's chakra had changed at all.
Karin shook her head, pointing at Naruto's chakra network that she could perceive.
"His reserves were huge before, but now they feel like yours as well, vast, like the ocean."
"So, I wasn't wrong in thinking his reserves were like that of a tailed beast now."
Tsunade spoke up.
"He has grown a couple of inches, and his body is now so durable that I have to use chakra sharpened into a knife's edge to draw blood for a blood test. Whatever is happening has something to do with his chakra; it has affected Sasuke as well."
Tsunade spoke up before looking to Gai and his team.
"You all are dismissed; go get your money and rest up, you deserve it."
Gai spared a glance at Kakashi's students before bowing to Tsunade and leading his team out the door.
Once the door closed with a soft click, Tsunade looked back to Sakura, Naruto, and Karin.
"Sasuke appears to have awakened the Rinnegan in one eye, but it's different from what Jiraiya described; his has 6 tomoe around the black pupil, though the ripple pattern is the same, and even the purple color is what he described."
"Rinnegan?"
Karin asked, having never heard of this dojutsu, Naruto and Sakura having only heard bits and pieces themselves.
"It's the rumored eye of the Sage of Six Paths, the one who is said to have created the moon and the father of Ninshu."
Tsunade spoke, reciting one of the drunken rambles Jiraiya had once spoken to her; the other comments were about her boobs, but he was promptly knocked out.
"And Sasuke awakened this while fighting the 100,000 enemies, and that wood style user?" Naruto asked, his expression serious. If something had forced Sasuke to go that far, the enemy was a massive threat.
"No," Tsunade replied. "According to Sasuke, Kakashi's chakra triggered the awakening when he reabsorbed it during the battle. He described it as Kakashi's chakra actively reaching out to his. Kakashi had been using a weapon conjured by Sasuke's Mangekyo ability. When Sasuke took the weapon back and absorbed the chakra stored within it, he was hit by an intense fever."
She sighed, looking toward the window. "Kakashi managed to destroy the barrier trapping them before teleporting them to safety. But right before they escaped, Kakashi reportedly took countless blows from a thousand-armed wooden construct."
Tsunade looked back at them.
"I had originally thought that Kakashi was somewhat like my Grandfather because the serum he came up with did miraculous things to whoever took it, but with what Jiraiya has told me lately, Kakashi is likely closer to being like the Sage of Six Paths himself."
The room fell into a heavy silence as the three of them processed the weight of her words. Comparing anyone to Hashirama was already a massive statement, but placing Kakashi on the same level as the creator of the shinobi world itself was almost unfathomable.
Sakura looked toward the door, her medical mind trying to comprehend how a human network could handle a transformation of that magnitude. "If his body is restructuring itself to match that kind of myth, it explains the coma. He isn't just resting; his system is entirely rewriting itself."
Karin crossed her arms. "And if his chakra was potent enough to force Sasuke's eye to evolve just from a single sword's worth of chakra, then Kakashi's current state must be entirely off the charts."
"From my understanding of Sasuke's Mangekyo abilities, they're far from simple, and the chakra absorbed from each weapon doesn't seem to have a limit, and if they do, then we'll likely never know unless someone with a near infinite amount gets hit by one."
Tsunade replied, pulling out a bottle of her sake and taking big gulps straight down the hatch.
"It's one thing after the other with that man; I feel sorry for his wife-to-be."
"Wife?!"
Naruto shouted in shock. Kakashi had planned on telling Naruto and Karin about his marriage with Mei after the mission, but the secret was out.
Karin's jaw dropped as she stared at Tsunade, while Sakura looked back and forth between them in complete disbelief.
Tsunade stopped drinking, lowering the bottle with a blink as she registered Naruto's explosive reaction. "Wait. You two didn't know?"
"No!" Naruto barked, his serious expression completely shattering. "He didn't say a word about a wedding!"
"That man," Tsunade muttered, shaking her head. "He finalized the engagement with Mei Terumi, the Fifth Mizukage, not long ago. It is a major political secret, but I assumed he would have told his own household."
Naruto stood frozen, his mind completely reeling. He had lived under Kakashi's roof for years, and the man had somehow managed to get engaged to the leader of the Hidden Mist without dropping a single hint… Well, maybe the hints were there; Naruto wasn't oblivious to the way Mei looked at Kakashi the time they went to help the Rebel forces, but how could Naruto have guessed they were already this far along? He expected dating at most; he clearly missed a lot, it would seem.
Tsunade stood up from her desk, setting her sake bottle down before gesturing toward the door. "You can yell at him when he wakes up. For now, pull yourselves together. Follow me to the hospital."
She walked past the stunned teens, leading Naruto, Karin, and Sakura out of the office and down the corridors of the Hokage building.
They reached the Konoha Hospital within minutes, passing through the secure wing until Tsunade stopped in front of a heavily guarded private room. She placed her hand on the handle and pushed open the door.
The room was quiet, dominated by the steady breathing of Kakashi on the bed. He looked different; even under the hospital sheets, it was obvious he had grown a bit taller, and his muscles looked leaner and far more compact than before. Sitting right next to the bed was Sasuke. He looked tired, pale, and completely still, his eyes fixed on his sensei's face.
Naruto and the others stepped quietly into the room, their attention drawn to the low hum of energy vibrating through the air. As the door clicked shut behind them, Sasuke slowly turned his head toward the group. His right eye was a normal dark iris, but his left eye showed a purple ripple pattern ringed by six distinct tomoe.
"Nice eye, Sasuke, but you look like crap," Naruto said, walking over to the bed. "When was the last time you slept or had anything to eat?"
"Hn. I was waiting for you to come back so that I could sleep," Sasuke replied.
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Before he could even finish settling into the seat, his eyelids dropped, and his head slumped forward as he fell fast asleep.
"He was stubborn; he didn't trust the Anbu or any of the other available Jonin to watch Kakashi. He even said, if you're not Naruto, Sakura, or Karin, then leave; you're too weak," Tsunade spoke up softly so as not to disturb Sasuke's sleep.
Sakura silently retrieved a blanket from the room's attached supply closet and lightly draped it over Sasuke's sleeping figure.
"He hurt a lot of egos with his words," Tsunade added, "but one look sent even the best Anbu away."
Naruto looked down at his sleeping teammate, a faint smile touching his face before he turned his attention back to the bed. He stepped closer to Kakashi, his hand resting on the edge of the mattress as he observed the steady rise and fall of his sensei's chest.
Naruto stepped closer to the bed, reaching out to gently rest his hand on Kakashi's arm.
The moment his skin made contact, Kakashi's dormant chakra reacted subconsciously, sending a thread of energy straight into Naruto's network.
As that energy entered his system, Naruto's own chakra violently flared in response. Instead of rejecting the incoming power, his energy recognized the spiritual frequency of Kakashi's chakra and surged forward to meet it. The two forces crashed together, locking into a rapid synchronization that sent a heavy wave of pressure through the room.
Naruto stiffened, his eyes widening as the explosive reaction within his network caused his core temperature to skyrocket in a split second.
"Naruto..." Karin whispered urgently, her sensory mind flaring as she felt the sudden, dual eruption. "Get away from him. His chakra is latching onto yours, and your own energy is pulling it in."
Before anyone could pull him back, Naruto's knees buckled. A heavy sweat broke out across his forehead, his breathing turning shallow and rapid as his system roared under the strain. It was the same sudden, overwhelming fever that had hit Sasuke, triggered by his cells fighting to adapt to the influx of the Sage-like energy. Naruto slumped against the edge of the mattress, completely paralyzed by the internal transformation.
Sakura rushed forward, her hands already glowing with medical chakra as she checked his vitals, keeping her voice low so as not to wake Sasuke. "Lady Tsunade, his body is burning up."
Inside Naruto's seal, the Nine-Tails' eyes snapped open, and he stood up, feeling a chakra that was all too familiar to his father's.
The massive fox stepped forward, his tails lashing through the water of the mindscape as he stared at the iron bars of his cage. He could feel his father's essence flooding the space, but as it mixed with Naruto's system, a second signature flared to life from the deepest part of the boy's soul.
It was Asura.
The fox froze, his massive jaw tightening as the realization hit him. For years, he had viewed Naruto as nothing more than another human jailer to resent and ignore. Now, the ancient, warm chakra of the Sage's younger son was unmistakably staring him in the face.
A dark chuckle rumbled deep in the beast's chest, his previous hostility completely melting into a grim fascination. If this brat was the reincarnation of Asura, and his copy-ninja sensei was channeling the old man himself, then the boring world of humans was finally about to get interesting. He sat back down on his haunches, his eyes fixed on the center of the seal with a newfound willingness to see just how far this boy could go.
- Chapter End -