Chapter 85: Tempted
Sakura's eyes narrowed as Sasuke and Gaara stepped into the arena.
Here we go. The main event.
Kakashi watched Sasuke from above, expression calm.
He'd taught Sasuke his father's kenjutsu. The boy's talent was extraordinary — in under a month, he'd made the Hatake blade style his own.
Fast. Ruthless. Precise.
Sasuke opened the fight by pulling a short blade from the storage scroll strapped to his wrist, lightning crackling across his body, and launched himself at Gaara like a thunderstrike given legs.
Kakashi watched, and for a moment the image blurred.
He looks like Father. Exactly like Father when he swung his blade.
"Kakashi."
Sakura's voice cut through it.
"What?"
"Who do you think would win — you, or the Kazekage?"
...What?
Kakashi stared at her, genuinely lost.
Me?
Against the Kazekage?
Who wins?
Lord, have mercy — he was a perfectly ordinary Konoha jōnin. What business did he have being compared to a Kage?
"...You're joking."
He said it slowly, like it physically hurt.
Sakura pointed down at Gaara.
"Don't tell me you can't see that kid is the One-Tail's jinchūriki."
"I can read his instability from up here. Look at those eye rings — he's never slept a day in his life. And Sand sent him to a joint exam hosted by three nations."
"The implication kind of writes itself, don't you think?"
She wasn't wrong. Even Fukasaku knew about Shukaku's situation. Kakashi had no excuse not to.
Kakashi went quiet.
On the surface, the village looked calm. But underneath, things had been churning for weeks. Hayate Gekkō's disappearance — then his body, found without explanation. Right in the middle of all this. Hard not to read into it.
Still—
"Sakura. Are you genuinely asking me to fight Rasa?"
Kakashi looked at Hiruzen's disciple with an expression that suggested mild existential distress.
He's a Kage. A sitting Kage. Of one of the Five Great Villages. Me. Fight him. Really.
"You can do it, Kakashi. I believe in you."
Sakura's gaze drifted to the covered eye.
She'd spent four years in ANBU — and at one point, out of sheer curiosity and the convenient access her position afforded, she'd pulled Kakashi's file.
She'd read it carefully.
And honestly? She'd wanted to reach through the page and pop that eyeball out.
The Sharingan had given Kakashi his reputation as the Copy Ninja, sure. But look at who he was actually copying from and against. The problem wasn't the eye — the problem was the eye had been eating him alive.
After the Nine-Tails attack twelve years ago, Kakashi had basically plateaued. A shinobi's growth was supposed to accelerate dramatically past the age of twelve. Kakashi's had crawled, because that borrowed eye drained him dry every time he opened it.
Look at actual Uchiha clan members — none of them ran around copying other people's techniques as their primary combat strategy. The Sharingan was a tool, not a personality.
The eye would matter enormously later. That was true. But it had cost Kakashi real years.
And look at Boruto-era Kakashi — the man lost the Sharingan and somehow turned his Lightning Cutter purple. That was him in his forties.
"..."
Kakashi looked at this pink-haired menace and found himself briefly speechless.
She really does trust me.
She's just trusting me straight into a hole in the ground.
Sakura watched him looking like a man who'd been asked to fight a bear and decided to feel sorry for himself, and clicked her tongue.
"Fine. If you're really that worried, take your partner with you."
"Partner?"
"Might Guy."
"You two are joined at the hip anyway. At this point it would be hard to convince anyone the relationship hasn't crossed a certain line."
Sakura gave him a level look, as if this were simply obvious.
"That — that is—"
"That is SLANDER—"
Kakashi's voice jumped an octave. His immediate instinct was to vigorously clarify his sexual orientation.
He was twenty-seven years old. Twenty-seven. And someone was implying he was — that he and Guy were—
The injustice of it.
"I'm not the only one who thinks it. What do you expect when you spend every waking hour with one man and no women in sight?"
Sakura watched Kakashi's crisis with quiet entertainment.
"I—"
He was about to argue when a wave of dark, turbulent chakra rolled up from the arena below. His expression shifted immediately.
Sakura had already looked.
A massive sphere of sand had formed in the center of the arena.
Sasuke stood before it, blade in hand, eyes wary.
By now Sasuke was in a different league than he'd been. He had Kakashi's signature technique. He had the White Fang's kenjutsu. Under normal conditions, Gaara was simply not his match.
But Sasuke's relentless assault had pushed Gaara past his limit.
A colossal sand claw, marked with purple tattoo-like lines, burst from the sphere and raked toward Sasuke.
Sasuke moved without hesitation — lightning surged up the blade, one flash of light — and the sand claw was nearly severed in two.
On the platform above, Hiruzen drew on his pipe and exhaled a thin curl of pale smoke. His eyes were grave.
Shukaku. The One-Tail.
He knew that beast better than almost anyone alive. Sand had deployed it in both the Second and Third Shinobi World Wars. He'd faced the consequences both times.
"Lord Kazekage. What exactly is the meaning of this?"
It was Ōnoki who spoke first, not Hiruzen.
Hiruzen's gaze flicked to the Tsuchikage, reading fast.
Ōnoki is objecting. Does that mean he didn't coordinate with Rasa on this?
Hard to say. Intelligence confirmed Rasa made contact with someone in the Land of Earth before arriving. But who, specifically — that was never established.
Rasa watched everything unfolding below with perfect composure.
"The meaning?"
"Lord Tsuchikage, perhaps age really has caught up with you."
"Is the Land of Earth eating well these days?"
Five words. Straight to the heart of why Ōnoki was here.
Rasa rose from his chair, removed the Kazekage's hat from his head, and continued.
"The Land of Fire has used its resource advantages to wrap its fingers around every other nation's throat."
"If we do nothing, we will all reach a point of no return."
"This measure — it is not my choice."
"It is the Hokage's responsibility."
His voice carried across the platform, across the arena, out into the crowd.
The words hit like a signal flare.
The Sand delegation — every member — moved at once, producing scrolls, flying through seals.
"Summoning Technique!"
Dozens of massive serpents erupted across Konoha simultaneously. The village erupted into chaos.
Ōnoki's expression darkened as he watched Rasa.
The man had approached him before this. He had neither accepted nor refused.
But now — hearing those words—
The Fire Nation's stranglehold on resources. The impossible position it had put every other nation in. The opportunity in front of him.
Rasa's strength. His own. And somewhere in the shadows — Orochimaru.
This was a gift handed down from heaven.
He was tempted.
(End of Chapter)