Standing before Kakashi was a middle-aged man with long silver-white hair tied in a ponytail, a white armband with a red triangle on his left shoulder, and a Chakra short blade in hand.
"...Kakashi?"
The figure before him had assumed an attacking stance like a cheetah, yet his voice was extraordinarily gentle, as though his body and voice were controlled by two different wills.
White Fang!
Or rather, Hatake Sakumo—Kakashi's father.
"It's me!"
Kakashi pulled down his mask, revealing the face with an ordinary left eye transplanted into it. Two streams of tears ran down his cheeks.
He could still remember the despair he had felt when he saw his father's corpse with his own eyes.
He had once thought his father was weak and blindly loyal, never expecting that he had made that choice for Kakashi's sake.
That was precisely why he wanted revenge against the Hokage Faction even more, and why he was willing to take up the White Fang once again.
Clang~!
A crisp metallic collision suddenly rang out before Kakashi.
At some point, White Fang had already swung his blade.
Gods and Demons Flee!
It was a simple strike, yet it gave off that very impression.
If Kakashi had not reacted quickly enough and been familiar with his father's fighting style, he might already have been wounded.
How strong had White Fang been at his peak?
Back then, he had overwhelmed the Three Sannin, forced Danzo to resort to underhanded means, silenced the Third Hokage, and earned a Hokage Haori.
Though the Three Sannin had not yet reached their strongest state at the time, they had at least been Kage-level experts.
In other words, White Fang's strength had been at least at the elite Kage level.
Of course, that was because of White Fang's particular trait.