Two weeks later, in a certain town along the southeastern coast of the Land of Fire.
The mission to escort the merchant caravan had already been completed smoothly, and Team 7 was resting here for the time being. Obito, with energy to spare, dragged Rin off to browse the market.
As for Kakashi, as always, he chose to act alone, looking for a quiet place to continue his endless training.
With both hands in his pockets and his head lowered, he strode quickly along the edge of the somewhat noisy street, repeatedly working through in his mind several difficult points of the new jutsu, Chidori, as well as the key techniques Minato-sensei had taught him for training reaction speed and control.
Just as he was about to turn into an alley, a huge promotional poster hanging at the entrance of a bookstore by the roadside seized the corner of his eye.
The poster was designed to be extremely eye-catching, even somewhat overblown. The background was an exaggerated blend of blazing flames and fine food, and at the center, a line of large characters struck the eye with force—
[Konoha's Genius Ninja! Recipient of the Land of Fire's Honorary Special-Class Chef Title! Presenting a passionately illustrated culinary hot-blooded legend—Number One Chef serialization begins with a bang!!]
Below it was a slightly smaller subtitle:
[See how a ninja wields the pen to interpret the ultimate path of taste! The first issue comes with a detailed explanation of the special-class chef's secret recipe: Spicy Tofu!]
Kakashi's steps came to an abrupt halt.
He raised his head, narrowed his eyes slightly, and stared fixedly at the poster, especially at the name Higashino Shinichi, which had been deliberately enlarged and bolded beneath the title.
A surge of emotion—a chaotic mixture of absurdity, irritation, and an even deeper unwillingness—erupted in his chest like an overturned spice jar.
That guy!
A few days ago, he had gone to participate in that whatever-it-was First Culinary Competition, causing such a stir that the entire village knew about it, even leading to a whole street celebrating. That had already been ridiculous enough.
And now, he was actually drawing manga too?! And promoting it with such fanfare?!
Higashino Shinichi, what exactly do you take becoming stronger for?
What do you take the path of a ninja for?
A game where you can casually split your focus and show off all sorts of irrelevant talents?!"
Kakashi's fist quietly tightened inside his pocket.
He recalled that crushing defeat on the training ground more than a month ago, recalled the broken White Fang, recalled Shinichi's harsh rebukes that had nevertheless struck straight at the core.
For more than a month now, he had trained like a man tormenting himself, chewing over that humiliation every minute and every second, squeezing out every last bit of stamina and chakra, all just to catch up to that figure—or even surpass him.
And what about the other side?
He had actually gone off to participate in some kind of culinary competition, and after returning with the championship, he had even leisurely started drawing manga!
A surge of anger rushed to his head—anger at being looked down on, even mocked.
Kakashi turned to leave almost instinctively, but after only two steps, he stopped again.
He wanted to see for himself what exactly the guy who had defeated him had managed to produce in the course of neglecting his proper work.
With a dark expression, Kakashi turned around and strode straight into the bookstore.
The shop was brightly lit, lined with shelves, and fairly bustling. On the new-book display stand at the most conspicuous spot by the entrance, a neat stack of brand-new magazines had been arranged, and on the cover was the full-color illustration for the first issue of Number One Chef.
A black-haired boy with bright eyes and a radiant smile held a kitchen knife and a spatula. Behind him rose blazing flames and exquisite dishes, and the whole image was full of motion and vitality.
Printed clearly in one corner of the cover were the words: Author: Higashino Shinichi.
Kakashi picked up a copy. It felt brand-new in his hands. He paid quickly, not even waiting for his change, then took the manga outside to a relatively quiet corner. Leaning against the wall, he opened to the first page.
At first, his brows were tightly furrowed. With a critical and doubtful gaze, his eyes swept quickly across those settings about the "Supreme Cuisine House" and "culinary duels."
But as the story unfolded, with the protagonist "Shinichi" and his senior apprentice brother Shōan engaging in an ultimate showdown centered around tofu...
The speed at which Kakashi turned the pages unknowingly slowed.
His gaze lingered on the manga panels: the protagonist "Shinichi's" utterly focused eyes as he handled the ingredients, the infuriatingly precise and steady technique with which he controlled the flames, and, finally, the depiction of the Spicy Tofu as it was served—so vivid in its glossy red sheen and rising steam that it seemed ready to burst through the page itself.
The artwork was solid, the paneling smooth, the narrative rhythm crisp and clean.
Most of all, the depiction of the cooking process—the exacting demands on detail, the precise expression of heat control, the deep understanding of the characteristics of the ingredients—each and every part showed the enormous effort the author had poured into it, along with a kind of professionalism shocking enough to unsettle him.
What shook Kakashi even more deeply was the core of the story itself. Faced with an opponent who was powerful, opportunistic, and even willing to resort to any means, the protagonist still held fast to his original conviction that "cooking is the way of caring for people, meant to convey happiness and warmth," and with the purest, most fundamental skill and sincerity, defeated head-on an enemy who had lost his way on the wrong path of power.
"Cooking is an extension of one's heart."
For some reason, that line from the protagonist in the manga was like a stone cast into a deep pool, sending ripples spreading through Kakashi's chaotic thoughts.
He suddenly snapped the manga shut with a muffled smack.
Absurd!
Ridiculous!
It was nothing more than a fabricated story!
He tried to drive away that strange feeling in his heart, but in his mind there uncontrollably surfaced the image of those clear eyes that had seemed to see through everything when he had been defeated.
And also that figure on the academy training ground, day after day, running with stones on his back and swinging a sword.
Higashino Shinichi!
I don't care how much spare energy you have to spend on these irrelevant things!
But I will never stop moving forward!
I will catch up to you, and then I will defeat you thoroughly!
Kakashi shoved the manga forcefully into his ninja pouch, turned around, and strode in big steps toward the wilderness outside the town. His back was straighter than when he had come, and also more stubbornly solitary.
By evening, the agreed meeting time had already passed.
Inside the inn room, Obito paced back and forth, and finally could not help blurting out, "Why isn't Kakashi back yet? Didn't he say he'd be back before dark?"
Rin also showed a worried expression. "Kakashi often trains by himself, but he's always on time when it's time to regroup... nothing could have happened to him, could it?"
Minato, who had been sitting quietly by the window reading through the mission scroll, looked up, closed the scroll, and stood. "Don't worry. I'll go take a look. You two stay at the inn and don't leave casually."
Before his words had even finished, his figure had already vanished from where he stood, leaving behind only a faint ripple in space.
In the wilderness outside the town, dusk was deepening.
Minato's figure flashed several times among sparse trees and scattered rocks, so fast that it left only vague golden afterimages on the retina.
Then suddenly, his steps halted.
A strange and ear-piercing cacophony came mixed in with the evening wind.
The sound was like hundreds upon thousands of birds shrieking sharply all at once, and also like metal grinding at high frequency. Contained within it was a violent and wildly unrestrained fluctuation of Lightning Release chakra.
It was Kakashi!
Minato's gaze sharpened, instantly judging the direction, and his figure vanished once more.
The next moment, he landed silently on a thick horizontal branch of a leafy tree and looked through the gaps down toward a clearing below.
In the clearing, Kakashi was bent slightly forward, his right hand shaped like a claw and held at his side.
Blinding blue lightning was surging, gathering, and compressing wildly from his palm, giving off the grating cry of a thousand birds!
The highly condensed lightning had taken on a sharp form, as though in his hand he held a short spear made of pure electricity, constantly screeching and roaring!
The lightning illuminated half his face and those black eyes of his. In them there was none of his usual coldness or confusion—only an almost fanatical focus, and beneath it, some fierce emotion on the verge of bursting out.
"Haah!"
Kakashi let out a low shout, and his figure suddenly transformed into a straight streak of blue lightning, lunging forward at a speed far beyond his usual limit!
His target was the enormous gray-black boulder at the far end of the clearing, weathered by who knew how many years of wind and frost!
Screee—BOOM!!!
The cry of the Chidori instantly rose to its peak, only to be swallowed by an even heavier and more terrifying explosion!
That streak of blue lightning pierced straight into the gigantic rock without the slightest obstruction!
Like a red-hot knife cutting into solidified grease, it directly punched through the center of the seemingly indestructible stone mass, leaving behind a horrifying hole whose edges were ragged and torn through from front to back!
Kakashi's figure appeared on the far side of the boulder, still maintaining the thrusting posture, his right arm buried deep inside the rock.
He slowly pulled his arm out, and the lightning gradually died away.
The next moment, having lost the support of its internal structure, the surface of the giant rock spread with countless thick cracks. With a series of heart-shaking cracking sounds, it collapsed with a crash, turning into a pile of smoking stone fragments.
He had succeeded!
He had really succeeded!
Kakashi lowered his head and looked at his right hand, which still retained a numb, prickling pain and tiny jumping sparks of electricity, then suddenly raised his head again to look at that heap of rubble.
More than a month of frenzied training, countless failures, backlash, torn muscles, and chakra disorder, his questioning of his father's path, his hatred of his own weakness, his unwillingness to accept that figure and his desperate pursuit of it...
All the repression, all the obsession, all the pain and confusion—in this moment, it seemed as though all of it had found, through this single strike, a violent outlet for release!
"Ha! I did it! Hahaha... I did it! Haha... Chidori!!! Hahahaha! Higashino Shinichi!!! Did you see that!? Hahahaha! I did it!!!"
A hoarse laugh spilled from his throat. At first it was restrained and intermittent, but then it grew louder and louder, more and more out of control, until it finally turned into loud laughter mixed with ecstasy, release, pain, and perversity!
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
That laughter echoed across the empty dusk wilderness. He was no longer like the cold and prematurely mature boy he usually was, but more like a young wolf that had broken free of part of its shackles and was howling at the moon, carrying the wildness of unwillingness and the almost feral release that came after long suppression.
On the thick tree branch, Minato quietly watched this scene without revealing himself at once.
Those azure eyes of his, always carrying warmth like sunlight, now seemed especially deep and calm. He saw the dangerous and powerful new jutsu in his disciple's hand, and he also saw the heavy psychological burden that was almost overflowing behind that mad laughter.
Let him vent for a while...
The evening wind brushed past, stirring up faint dust and the grassy wild smell unique to the wilderness.
Minato's figure, as though melting into the thickening dusk, silently disappeared.
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