[This Is Going to Go Bad!][Please Vote!]

A month later, news of White Fang Hatake Sakumo's mission failure spread throughout the village.

While carrying out an extremely classified mission, Hatake Sakumo had infiltrated enemy territory as the captain and been forced to make an impossible choice—continue the mission or save his comrades.

According to Konoha's rules, abandoning a mission was strictly forbidden.

After weighing his options, however, Hatake Sakumo had ultimately chosen to terminate the mission in order to save his comrades' lives.

As a result, both the Land of Fire, which had suffered losses because of this, and his fellow villagers blamed him. In the end, even the teammates he had saved slandered him.

Obviously, the Konoha higher-ups led by the Third Hokage had been fanning the flames behind all this.

The reason the Konoha higher-ups led by Sarutobi Hiruzen had done this was simple: Hatake Sakumo was a remarkable man respected by everyone in the village, and the leading candidate to become the next Hokage.

Hatake Sakumo's accomplishments and reputation had reached the point where even the legendary Three Sannin had to give him some leeway.

Sarutobi Hiruzen's goal was that, whether he remained in office or not, he had to be Konoha's absolute number-one leader.

In the original story, Orochimaru, Sarutobi Hiruzen's most beloved disciple, had once said that choosing Namikaze Minato as the Fourth Hokage meant choosing a puppet.

Namikaze Minato would certainly obey the Third Hokage's every word.

But Hatake Sakumo never would.

And because of this mission, Hatake Sakumo had fallen into a deep slump.

If the plot continued according to the original story, Hatake Sakumo would commit suicide before long.

Public opinion really could kill people.

But unlike the original story, Hatake Kakashi's mindset had changed after some exchanges with Hyuga Bin.

Even though Hatake Sakumo's affairs caused others to point fingers at him, he did not care.

All he cared about was Hatake Sakumo's condition. During this time, he had taken leave every day to stay by his father's side and comfort him.

When he discovered that Hatake Sakumo showed suicidal tendencies, he had even said something Hyuga Bin taught him—words that were difficult for someone with his personality to utter:

"Father, if you are gone, then there is no point in a lonely child like me continuing to live either..."

Perhaps because of Hatake Kakashi's words, Hatake Sakumo ultimately did not choose suicide. He also resigned as the head of the Anbu and applied to Sarutobi Hiruzen for a year of leave, intending to recover at home and teach Hatake Kakashi.

This was the first time Hyuga Bin had actively changed the plot of the original story since transmigrating into the world of Naruto.

Of course, Hatake Sakumo not committing suicide was also what Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen had hoped for.

The higher-ups represented by Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen did not want Hatake Sakumo to kill himself either.

As a Kage Level powerhouse of Konoha, Hatake Sakumo was capable of influencing the course of a battle on the battlefield.

Their goal had merely been to make Hatake Sakumo lose the possibility of becoming the Fourth Hokage.

After all, Hatake Sakumo's support had previously been so overwhelming that Sarutobi Hiruzen worried his seat was unstable, Shimura Danzō felt he had no chance at all of becoming the next Hokage, and Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura feared they would lose some of their authority.

Now that Hatake Sakumo had resigned out of guilt and his reputation in Konoha had worsened, he had already lost any possibility of competing for the position of Fourth Hokage. Naturally, it was an outcome where "everyone was happy."

As a genius, and with Hatake Sakumo's meticulous daily guidance, Hatake Kakashi successfully became a Chunin at the age of six, breaking the record for the youngest Chunin once again.

Previously, Hatake Kakashi had graduated from the Ninja Academy at the age of five, likewise breaking Konoha Ninja Academy's graduation record.

Before that, the youngest Academy graduate had been six years old, while the youngest Genin promoted to Chunin had been eight.

On the night of his promotion to Chunin, Hatake Kakashi sought out Hyuga Bin for another challenge.

Then, he was defeated by Hyuga Bin again.

After the battle, Hyuga Bin told him that he had used 85 percent of his strength this time.

Hatake Kakashi believed Hyuga Bin's words and decided to work even harder. He also made an agreement with Hyuga Bin to challenge him again next year.

And so...

Konoha Year 40.

One day, after returning to the village from a mission, Hatake Kakashi once again challenged Hyuga Bin in that familiar little grove.

Then, he lost again!

However, this time, he could feel that Hyuga Bin's breathing had become hurried after the fight. Clearly, the gap between them was not that great.

When he asked Hyuga Bin, Hyuga Bin said he had used 90 percent of his strength this time.

Konoha Year 41.

Hatake Kakashi challenged Hyuga Bin and lost once more.

But this time, he had only narrowly lost by one move. He had come within a hair's breadth of defeating Hyuga Bin.

He had every reason to believe that next time, he definitely could.

Next time for sure! Next time for sure!

After all these years, he had finally seen the dawn of defeating Hyuga Bin.

Konoha Year 42.

That year, Hyuga Bin graduated before Hatake Kakashi's challenge arrived.

After graduation, the students were assigned into mission squads.

On the day of the assignments, Hyuga Bin quietly waited in the classroom for the Jonin who would lead the team to arrive.

Konoha squads usually followed the tradition of "one strong veteran carrying three deadweights." If they were on an escort mission, there would also be a useless extra whose only job was to shout "awesome."

After waiting for half an hour, Hyuga Masayuki, a friend of Hyuga Bin's father, entered the classroom and called his name.

Besides him, Hyuga Masayuki also called Uchiha Obito and Nohara Rin. The three of them were Team 22 for that year.

This surprised Hyuga Bin somewhat.

Because he remembered that, in the original story, Hatake Kakashi had switched teams several times a few years after graduation. When Nohara Rin and Uchiha Obito graduated, the three had become teammates, and their new Jonin instructor had been Namikaze Minato.

But this time, Namikaze Minato was not among the Jonin instructors. Hatake Kakashi, Uchiha Obito, and Nohara Rin had not become teammates either. Instead, Nohara Rin, Uchiha Obito, and he had formed a team.

Hyuga Bin was not sure whether the original plot had changed due to his butterfly effect, or whether he had simply remembered it wrong. Perhaps Hatake Kakashi had not immediately teamed up with the other two after they graduated, but only joined them later to "form a group" into one squad.

If it was the latter, then squads "forming a group" meant the deaths of their original teammates, allowing incomplete teams to be reorganized...

Then Hyuga Bin reached one possibility:

"Hyuga Masayuki and I are doomed sooner or later?"

(A new week has begun. Please vote with recommendation tickets. Thank you, everyone!)