Tsunade glanced up, the corner of her mouth curling slightly. "Tch, that brat's here again."
Shizune followed her gaze, still chewing, and said vaguely, "As expected, it's Kakashi."
Kurenai also lifted her head, took a look, then lowered it and continued eating, her expression calm—as if she had merely seen a cat passing by.
The members of Team Ten were long used to this. Whenever there was free time, Kakashi would appear at Shinichi's side. Sometimes they sparred, sometimes they discussed ninjutsu, and sometimes they said nothing at all—he would just sit quietly nearby, watching Shinichi train, then leave in silence.
Kakashi walked over, his gaze sweeping across the group seated in a circle before finally settling on Shinichi. He said nothing, simply standing there, his white hair swaying slightly in the wind.
Shinichi set down his bowl and chopsticks, looked up at him, and spoke naturally, "Already eaten? Want to join us for a bit?"
"No need." Kakashi replied briefly and flatly, "I've eaten."
Shinichi glanced at him, said nothing more, and stood up.
"Then let's go."
"They're going to start fighting again," Shizune muttered under her breath.
The two of them walked one after the other toward the open ground in the center of the training field.
At the center of the clearing, they stopped ten paces apart. The autumn wind swept through, lifting a few withered leaves that spun between them.
No unnecessary words. No opposing hand seals. Not even any starting stance.
They moved almost at the exact same instant.
Clang!
The crisp clash of steel tore through the afternoon stillness.
The short blade in Kakashi's hand carved a sharp arc, aiming straight for Shinichi's shoulder and neck.
Instead of retreating, Shinichi advanced. As he turned his body to let the blade pass, the longsword in his hand slashed upward at an angle, the tip pointing directly at Kakashi's ribs.
Kakashi withdrew his blade to block. The blade barely caught the strike, but the force still drove him back a step. His eyes sharpened, his feet braced, and he surged forward again.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The clash of metal rang out in rapid succession, relentless and unbroken. The two figures crossed, separated, and collided again at high speed—so fast it was dizzying to follow!
Blade-light and sword-shadow wove into an airtight net. Every clash sent out scattered sparks. Shinichi's footwork was calm and unhurried, his sword movements steady and flowing. Every block and counter was perfectly measured, giving off an effortless feeling—almost as if he were merely sparring.
Kakashi's attacks, on the other hand, grew increasingly fierce. In his hands, the short blade turned into streak after streak of cold light—chopping, slashing, thrusting, lifting. Every movement was clean and decisive, carrying a relentless, all-out ferocity.
He clenched his teeth, his assault unrelenting, but his heart grew heavier.
Is the gap still this big?
No… it's even bigger than before.
He could feel it—Shinichi wasn't using his real strength at all. That composed demeanor, those counters that always seemed to leave room… rather than a fight, it felt more like he was being guided through practice.
That realization was more suffocating than any blow.
Kakashi took a deep breath. His body suddenly halted, and the next instant—
Crackle, crackle, crackle!!!
A piercing, ear-splitting sound erupted!
Brilliant azure lightning surged from the short blade in Kakashi's hand, like countless furious birds screeching!
The lightning spread along the blade, gathering and condensing, wrapping the entire weapon in a dazzling arc of electricity!
Lightning Release: Chidori Blade!
This was a new application he had developed after discussing with Shinichi—not just condensing Chidori in his hand, but extending it into his weapon, letting the weapon itself carry Chidori's piercing and paralyzing properties!
A flash of resolve passed through Kakashi's eyes. Riding the momentum of his charge, the lightning-wreathed blade slashed toward Shinichi once more—faster, fiercer than any attack before!
The blade cut through the air, leaving behind a brilliant blue trail. Even the autumn wind seemed to wail as it was torn apart by the violent Lightning Release chakra. This strike was faster and harsher than anything he had unleashed before!
However…
Shinichi's figure swayed slightly—just that slight movement—and the lightning-clad blade brushed past him, cutting nothing but air. The lightning left a fleeting arc in the air before dissipating.
Kakashi remained frozen in his slashing posture.
He had missed.
He breathed heavily, his chest heaving, sweat running down his face and soaking the edge of his mask. The hand holding the blade trembled slightly. His stamina and chakra were already nearing their limits.
And yet, even so, he hadn't touched even a corner of Shinichi's clothes.
Shinichi stood three steps away, his longsword already lowered at his side, his breathing as steady as ever—as if that dangerous exchange just now had been nothing more than an afternoon stroll.
The autumn wind passed through, carrying fallen leaves drifting between them.
In the distance, Shizune muttered softly, "And it's over again."
Her tone made it hard to tell whether she was impressed or simply accustomed to it.
Shinichi looked at the heavily breathing Kakashi, a gentle smile appearing on his face. "You've improved a lot, Kakashi. Your use of Chidori Blade is much more refined than last time."
Kakashi remained silent, lowering his eyes to the short blade in his hand, where faint sparks of electricity still lingered.
"But…" Shinichi's tone shifted, "you still have a weakness."
"Your chakra reserves are too low. Of course, that's not your fault—it's just because you're still young. With your talent, your chakra capacity will naturally grow in a few years. But for now…"
His expression turned serious. "You've been pushing yourself hard these past few months—I've been watching. But training isn't just about brute force. You need to know how to recover as well. If you push too hard without keeping up with recovery, you'll leave hidden injuries that will drag you down in the long run."
As he spoke, Shinichi took a scroll from his sleeve and tossed it to Kakashi.
Kakashi caught it instinctively, lowering his head to look at it, his brows slightly furrowing.
"This is something I put together based on some medical texts, combined with my own understanding—dietary therapy and medicinal bath formulas," Shinichi explained. "Follow the combinations written there. After each training session, soak in the medicinal bath. It'll help your body recover faster and nourish your chakra pathways. If you keep it up long-term, it'll be very beneficial."
Kakashi held the scroll, silent for a long moment.
"Why are you helping me so much?"
His voice carried no obvious emotion, but his eyes were fixed directly on Shinichi, as if waiting for an answer.
Tch, scared stiff by the power of Konoha friendship.
Shinichi mocked inwardly, but his expression remained unchanged. He smiled. "We're comrades, aren't we? Helping each other is only natural. And…"
"As your teammate, the stronger you become, the better it is for me. Who knows—maybe one day, if I run into danger on a mission or the battlefield, I might have to rely on you to save me."
Shinichi had his own calculations.
Kakashi was a true genius—especially when it came to Lightning Release. His talent was almost instinctive.
The development of Chidori, the integration of Lightning Release with weapons, even application ideas Shinichi himself had never considered—Kakashi was progressing both quickly and deeply along that path.
On top of that, Shinichi currently had the [Chūnin] and [Guidance] entries, both of which slightly improved his efficiency when teaching others.
Along with [Sword Master], which also provided a slight boost in weapon-related instruction, Kakashi's progress in integrating Lightning Release into weapons had become even more pronounced.
As for Shinichi's clone, although it had inherited Enma's lineage—granting it a powerful physique and the ability to use Lightning Release—it lacked the talent-related entries tied to shinobi aptitude.
For example, the training efficiency boost from the [Chūnin] class, or the deeper understanding of ninjutsu granted by [Ninjutsu Proficiency]. In terms of developing Lightning Release, it still couldn't match Kakashi, a natural genius in this field.
As for his main body—it didn't even possess Lightning Release chakra. If he wanted to start learning Lightning Release from scratch, it would take a considerable amount of focused effort. And at this stage, where would he find the time or energy?
But guiding Kakashi brought mutual benefits.
Every bit of Kakashi's progress, every breakthrough he achieved in Lightning Release, would be synchronized to that clone.
Their frequent exchanges and sparring during this time had long since gone beyond simple practice.
What Kakashi thought about, what he experimented with, the problems he encountered and how he solved them…
All of it had become invaluable nourishment for the clone—and in the future, a fast track for Shinichi himself to quickly grasp and master Lightning Release.
Helping Kakashi grow faster was, in the end, helping himself.
Save you?
With someone as strong as you, would you even need me to save you?
Hearing this, Kakashi was momentarily stunned, then turned his face away.
"As long as it doesn't conflict with my mission." His voice was stiff, almost squeezed through clenched teeth. "Don't expect me to abandon a mission to save you. So you'd better not get into trouble."
After saying that, he tucked the scroll into his ninja pouch and turned to leave.
After a few steps, Kakashi suddenly stopped, glancing sideways. His voice came again, still stiff.
"I've got a mission tomorrow. I'll probably be out of the village for ten days to half a month."
Shinichi raised an eyebrow but didn't respond.
"Half a month from now, I'll come challenge you again."
With that, the silver-white figure walked off without looking back, his steps a little faster than before.
Oh?
Ten days to half a month?
Perfect. That gives me room to start planning.
Watching that receding figure, Shinichi's lips slowly curved into a faint smile.
...
That same evening, inside the Hokage's office, the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, set down his pipe and, with a grave expression, picked up the document signed "Higashino Shinichi."
"What has this child written this time?"
This was already the second time.
As early as last year, not long after returning from the Chūnin Exams in Sunagakure, that child had submitted a written report. The title was concise and direct: Analysis and Forecast of the Current Shinobi World Situation.
At the time, when the Third Hokage accepted the document, he had merely smiled. A child had just returned from the Chūnin Exams, had seen the customs and scenery of Sunagakure, and come back wanting to write down some thoughts and reflections—that was hardly unusual. He had only intended to skim through it casually, then praise the boy a little and encourage his initiative.
However, when he opened the first page and his gaze swept across the opening lines, the smile at the corner of his mouth froze.
The document began from the macroscopic situation of the Five Great Nations and the Five Great Shinobi Villages, analyzing layer upon layer. The breadth of vision and the depth of thought it displayed were nothing like something a child should have been able to write.
"Since the end of the Second Shinobi World War, every nation and every major shinobi village has been recuperating after the war, restoring population, reviving the economy, and continuously expanding the size of its shinobi forces..."
"Shinobi are officially commissioned military personnel of the state. The core income of every major shinobi village depends on national fiscal allocations. At the same time, caravan escort, border patrols, intelligence gathering, disaster relief, and other civilian and official commissions constitute the villages' additional income. Together, the two support the economic foundation of a shinobi village..."
"But the total resources of a nation, the carrying capacity of its finances, and the scale of the commission market all have their limits in the end. When the expansion speed of a shinobi village's forces exceeds the combined upper limit of what national support and the commission economy can sustain, when internal demand can no longer be met, seeking breakthroughs externally becomes inevitable..."
When the Third Hokage had read this far back then, his heart had shaken. His pipe had stopped midair, and for a long while he had not taken another puff.
The document then continued to unfold. First, it briefly listed the military data of each nation and each major shinobi village. Then, starting from economic foundations, resource distribution, and geopolitical structure, it dissected the deeper dilemmas each nation and village faced.
Some countries had most of their territory swallowed by barren desert, with scarcely any cultivable land. The national treasury was already strained, and the support funds they could allocate to their shinobi village were a mere drop in the bucket. The routine commissions their homeland could sustain were even fewer. In order to feed the continuously graduating new shinobi, the village could only force its shinobi to cross borders and compete for missions from neighboring countries. Over time, more and more shinobi ended up drawing blades against one another over commission quotas.
It had even become normal for villages from different countries to come into conflict over missions, and every clash during a mission, every shinobi who died over a commission, planted another seed of hatred between both sides.
Some countries were cramped and narrow in territory, shrouded year-round in endless rain, with floods occurring frequently. Even stable farming and trade were difficult to maintain. The national treasury was constantly in deficit, and support for their shinobi village came intermittently. Yet they happened to be wedged between several great powers, with their homeland used year after year as a battlefield for covert struggles between major nations' shinobi. Proper commissions were out of the question. In order to survive, they could kill anyone—and die at anyone's hands.
They had even dared to invade the Land of Iron, the permanently neutral nation universally recognized as such throughout the shinobi world.
Some countries were isolated overseas, yet had never given up their ambition to meddle in the affairs of the continent. Their shinobi were infamous for bloodshed and brutality. Their internal rule, long shrouded beneath mist, had grown more twisted by the year, and bloody purges had become routine. And when internal purges could no longer truly solve their problems, outward war became the only outlet left for redirecting internal contradictions...
Some countries were mountainous, with little arable land and poor resources, yet their people were as fierce as blades, with a culture that prized martial strength. Going to war and plundering abroad was an instinct carved into their bones...
Some countries were weak, yet by chance had received tailed beasts through the First Hokage's generosity—strategic-grade weapons enough to alter the balance of war. The possession of such treasure was itself a crime...
And some countries sat upon the most fertile land in the shinobi world and the most prosperous trade network. Their national finances were abundant, and they never skimped on support for their shinobi village. Added to that were commission quotas, which, on domestic missions alone, kept them at the top among the Five Great Shinobi Villages year after year.
Such abundant economic support had fostered the largest shinobi force in the shinobi world and relatively better conditions, but it had also made that nation the thorn in the flesh and the eye of all surrounding shinobi villages.
From the Kage to the daimyō, from the common people to the officials, everyone in that nation was doing everything possible to avoid war. The authorities repeatedly signed peace treaties and mutual-aid alliances with neighboring countries, yet those treaties were ultimately meaningless.
In every Shinobi World War, that nation had never been the one to start it. On the contrary, it had always been the stabilizing force. Yet it was always the target first attacked and jointly pressured by all sides. In the face of structural demands for plunder, the will for peace was so fragile it could not withstand a single blow.
"The economic foundation determines the superstructure. The essence of a shinobi village is a military group that survives by relying on national support and the commission economy. When a nation's fiscal allocations and mission commission income can no longer support its ever-expanding shinobi forces, internal contradictions will inevitably arise..."
"And when those internal contradictions intensify to the point where they cannot be reconciled, war becomes the most direct outlet. It can plunder outside resources to relieve internal pressure, and it can also forge internal consensus through a shared external enemy. War is merely the continuation of politics by another means..."
Back then, the Third Hokage had reread those words countless times. At first he was confused, then he felt a strange sort of clarity, and finally it turned into deep shock.
Simple. Cold. Yet impossible to refute.
This child had not, like everyone else, attributed the cause of war to a chain of hatred, to the unpredictability of human hearts, to the schemes of certain ambitious figures, or even to people being unable to understand one another.
Instead, he had said—
This was the inevitability of structure!
Resources were finite. The carrying capacity of a nation's treasury was finite. The scale of the commission market was finite. But shinobi forces kept expanding, and the demand for survival kept swelling. Once it reached a certain point, external expansion would inevitably be sought.
This was not caused by some villain. It was not because one generation was more foolish than another. It was because once internal contradictions accumulated to the critical point, war would, like floodwaters in the rainy season, wash away every embankment.
How could a child write something like this?
Who taught him?
No!
No one could have taught him!
The Third Hokage himself had led Konohagakure for decades, stood at the highest level, held endless intelligence in his hands, and experienced every key point of two Shinobi World Wars, yet he had never grasped this principle. Nor had the upper echelons of the other shinobi villages, those people who had lived for decades and seen everything the world had to show.
Even the high officials of other nations—their chief ministers, their daimyō, the heads of state and the highest of their ministers—had never thought about the issue from this angle.
And yet this child—after becoming a shinobi, after carrying out missions for half a year, after making a few rounds within the Land of Fire, perhaps only seeing the daimyō's public notices of fiscal allocations to Konoha, seeing the endless stream of clients in Konoha's mission hall—
After going abroad just once to Sunagakure for the Chūnin Exams, perhaps only seeing the endless desert and barren land of the Land of Wind along the way, hearing some Sunagakure shinobi complain about the daimyō's budget cuts and the scarcity of commissions—
Using only these everyday things that every shinobi had long taken for granted, he had laid bare the deepest logic of the entire shinobi world—the profound connection between nation, shinobi village, economy, and war—and written it plainly on paper.
No one had taught him.
He had seen it himself, thought it through himself, and written it himself.
This child was actually a genius strategist too!?
And in the final part of the document, that child had not simply said that war might break out. Starting from that macro-level logic, he had deduced the inevitable course war would take:
"The arms expansion and war preparations of every nation have already become a foregone conclusion. At the latest, it will not take longer than next year. This is not something the personal will of any daimyō or any Kage can alter. It is the inevitability determined by structural contradictions. Once everyone begins preparing for war, the foundations of peace have already been shaken. The first to make a move may not be the one with the deepest hatred, but the one under the greatest internal pressure, or the one that believes the timing is most ripe."
"Once conflict erupts, it will never remain an isolated local friction. The Five Great Nations check one another in a mutually restraining balance; move one hair and the whole body stirs. Any military gamble by any one side will shatter that fragile balance and trigger chain reactions. By then, smaller countries such as the Land of Grass, the Land of Hot Water, and the Land of Waterfalls will all become buffer zones and the chessboard upon which the great powers contend, just as they did during the Second Shinobi World War. No one will be spared."
Back then, after reading that report, the Third Hokage had remained silent for a long time.
And the result had indeed turned out exactly as the child had said.
Kumogakure, Iwagakure, Sunagakure, and Kirigakure—without exception—had all begun large-scale military expansion and war preparations at the start of this year. Espionage activity from every side had increased sharply, and small-scale conflicts had continued without cease.
Precisely because of that, when the Third Hokage heard the abnormal movements from the various nations and great shinobi villages in March this year, he decisively activated wartime preparations.
Because as early as one year before, through this child's report, he had already been mentally prepared.
Otherwise, with how much more conservative his thinking had become over the years, he likely would not have resolved to act until the situation had become completely unmistakable.
And it was precisely because of the accuracy of that previous forecast that, from the very beginning, the Third Hokage gave this new report from the child an unprecedented degree of importance.
"To the Hokage personally..."
He had only just opened the document, but the content that followed was merely a single line—yet that single line alone made the Third Hokage's pupils contract sharply.
Because written there at the very start, in stark clarity, were the words—
"The Third Kazekage is dead!"
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