Kakashi, Go!

In the end, he successfully wrangled several tens of thousands of Ryo in sponsorship money from Uncle.

This was money for the future god of the Shinobi World. Did ordinary people even get the chance to give him money?

So Hyuga Kazuya felt no shame whatsoever. Instead, he smugly stuffed the money into his own pocket.

He even told Uncle, "Once I start taking missions and making money, I'll pay you back."

As for when that would be...

Next time, for sure.

Why be so formal with family?

Watching Hyuga Kazuya promise to pay him back someday, Uncle felt utterly helpless.

You've been saying that since you were four or five. Now you've already graduated, and you're still asking me for money.

But there was nothing he could do. This was his only relative, and he was so talented, at the top of his generation in strength, and such a smooth talker.

So he simply could not keep hold of his wallet.

The next day, close to noon, at the Sixth Training Ground on Konoha's back mountain.

Konoha's back mountain had numerous Training Grounds. Ordinary people were normally forbidden from entering; only those who had become ninja could enter.

Hyuga Kazuya had only learned about some of the Training Grounds' rules today after running into a classmate on his way there.

The First through Fifth Training Grounds were public Training Grounds. Any ninja could enter them, and they were generally used by ordinary Chunin and Genin.

Starting from the Sixth Training Ground, they were specially prepared for Jonin-level ninja.

That meant Jonin had to make reservations in advance if they wanted to use a Training Ground.

In truth, ordinary Jonin generally had no need for these Training Grounds.

In Konoha, at least seventy percent of those who became Jonin were ninja clan members. Their clans, large or small, all had private Training Grounds.

Therefore, Hyuga Kazuya was not surprised in the slightest to find Training Ground 6 completely empty.

He found an open spot and sat down cross-legged. Hyuga Kazuya sorted through the ninjutsu he possessed, intending to organize them into a chart so he could more easily determine which ninjutsu to develop first, or which ones to acquire first to make up for his weaknesses.

Hyuga Kazuya

Chakra: 1 card

Taijutsu: (Gentle Fist: 128 Palms) (Revolving Heaven) (Eight Trigrams: Empty Palm)

Ninjutsu: (Three Body Techniques) (Speed Buff) (Power Buff) (Rasengan series: Wind and Large) (Wind Chasing Arrow)

Overall Strength: Jonin

Evaluation: Attack power could instantly reach Kage-level. Explosive power was ample, but endurance was lacking. Combat experience was severely insufficient. He could easily die in close combat.

Oh, right. "Speed Buff" was Wind Spirit. He had changed the name to keep the formatting consistent.

Lack of combat experience was something he could do nothing about. You could not expect someone who had worked in an Office in his past life to possess an especially high combat IQ.

Also, perhaps he had trusted the Byakugan too much. He had blindly pursued lethality without considering defense.

"Maybe I was influenced without realizing it. After all, ninja generally have high offense and low defense." Hyuga Kazuya recalled why he had once pursued destructive power so excessively, but he could not quite put the feeling into words.

Or perhaps he had been influenced by those "nuclear bomb" ninja from later on?

If you could not fire nuclear bombs, how could you stand at the pinnacle of the Shinobi World?

Had he not been idly passing the time while waiting for someone today and made himself a status panel, Hyuga Kazuya would never have noticed that relying solely on the Wind Release Rasenshuriken and the Chakra Metal version of Wind Chasing Arrow had already brought his attack power to Kage-level.

Instead, his strength, speed, reactions, Chakra, and the extremely important matter of defense had always been weaknesses.

In other words, he could play the part of a lousy Kage-level powerhouse. If he threw out a full set of skills and hit the enemy, he won. If he missed, he died.

Hyuga Kazuya was currently stuck in just such an awkward situation.

Who was stronger, his current self or Uchiha Itachi before the clan massacre?

After thinking it over for a while, Hyuga Kazuya still felt they were evenly matched. It would either be him one-shotting Itachi or Itachi one-shotting him.

Of course, that was assuming they did not fight at close range. Otherwise, he would undoubtedly die. For someone to become an Anbu captain at twelve or thirteen, one could imagine just how much combat experience he possessed.

Coming back to his senses, he stopped dwelling on those irrelevant matters and carefully considered his shortcomings. Strength, speed, and Chakra could not be improved overnight, but there were two other areas where he could find reasonably good solutions in the short term.

One was improving his defense. At a low level, he could use Earth Release defensive ninjutsu. At a high level, there was Kumogakure's Lightning Style Chakra Armor.

But there was a fatal problem: how was he supposed to obtain those ninjutsu?

Even if he could obtain them...

As for Earth Release ninjutsu, since he did not possess the Earth attribute, there would be issues such as heavy Chakra consumption and reduced power.

There was no need to mention Lightning Style ninjutsu. Konoha had few high-level Lightning Style ninja, much less Kumogakure's Lightning Style Chakra Mode.

Some higher-ups might have it, but what reason did he have to ask for it? So that path was closed.

The other option was reducing energy consumption. With his amount of Chakra, he could use the Wind Release Rasenshuriken three times.

Because of his precise Chakra control, the same Wind Release Rasenshuriken consumed less Chakra in his hands than it did in the original story in Naruto Uzumaki's hands. Moreover, he had already trained the Wind Release Rasenshuriken to 100%, meaning he could attack from range and launch the Wind Release Rasenshuriken.

But Hyuga Kazuya did not have the slightest clue how to improve the Wind Release Chakra Shuriken.

Wind Chasing Arrow, on the other hand, might have some possibilities.

Hyuga Kazuya suppressed those thoughts, planning to test his energy-saving ideas the next time he used Overclocking.

He did not have to wait long before Hatake Kakashi's small figure arrived at the Sixth Training Ground.

"Good afternoon, Senior Kazuya. Please take care of me from now on," Hatake Kakashi said very respectfully.

Seeing Hatake Kakashi's demeanor, Hyuga Kazuya was somewhat surprised.

He got beaten up once, so why had he suddenly become so polite?

Though he did not understand it, since the other party was being so courteous, Hyuga Kazuya naturally could not respond with harsh words.

"Good afternoon, Kakashi. You don't need to call me senior. By rank, you're actually my superior."

"You are stronger than me, Senior, so naturally you are my senior," Kakashi replied with a solemn expression.

Seeing how serious Kakashi was, Hyuga Kazuya found it difficult to argue further. Besides, it was not a bad thing.

"When we parted last time, Teacher Minato said he might test our strength today." Hyuga Kazuya wanted to discuss a strategy with Hatake Kakashi before Minato Namikaze arrived.

Based on Hyuga Kazuya's guess, Teacher Minato would most likely have him and Kakashi attack together, using it to observe whether they had coordination in battle.

"Discuss tactics first?" Kakashi had clearly understood Hyuga Kazuya's meaning.

"Right. Let's first talk about what each of us is good at."

Hyuga Kazuya did not conceal anything and directly said that he was best at ranged archery.

As for why he did not hide it, Hyuga Kazuya believed that with Kakashi's intelligence, he naturally knew what should and should not be said.

As for Minato Namikaze? Even if Kakashi accidentally let something slip, Minato Namikaze would not.

One should not underestimate the intelligence and political instincts of the future Fourth Hokage. Perhaps because he knew Hyuga Kazuya could use a bow, he would instead think he had grasped Hyuga Kazuya's weakness and become even more friendly toward him.

Of course, that was merely Hyuga Kazuya's speculation. He did not know whether it was true, but the possibility existed, right?

When Kakashi heard Hyuga Kazuya say he was best at ranged archery, he silently grumbled to himself, You beat me with Gentle Fist alone. How terrifying must your archery be?

"I understand. I'm good at close combat, speed, and Chakra Blade Technique."

At this point in time, Hatake Kakashi was merely a straightforward Hatake Clan warrior-type ninja, still far from the so-called Konoha Copy Ninja of the future.

Hyuga Kazuya nodded, and Kakashi nodded as well. Clearly, both understood what they needed to do.

There was actually no real plan. With their intelligence, both understood that the more elaborate the plan, the more likely something would go wrong.

Silently.

A figure appeared not far from the two of them, as though he had been directly copied and pasted here from another time and space.

It was none other than Minato Namikaze.

"No matter how many times you see it, the speed of Flying Thunder God is terrifying."

Clearly, both Hyuga Kazuya and Kakashi had the same thought. This was likely how others in the Shinobi World would evaluate the Yellow Flash in the future: speed beyond human reflexes, the ability to appear unpredictably anywhere around you, and before you even knew what had happened, your head was already on the ground.

"Good afternoon. I called you here today to test your overall strength."

After greeting them and stating his purpose, Minato Namikaze clapped his hands and introduced himself. "My name is Minato Namikaze. I'm a Jonin. I'm good at speed. I like reading and cooking. There's nothing I dislike."

Upon hearing Minato Namikaze's introduction, Kakashi and Hyuga Kazuya introduced themselves in turn.

"Hatake Kakashi, Chunin. I'm good at close combat. I like becoming stronger. I dislike people who are weak and still insist on being teammates." He did not mention that he too specialized in speed, because before Minato Namikaze, who would dare call themselves a speed-type ninja?

After hearing Kakashi's introduction, Hyuga Kazuya and Minato Namikaze exchanged a glance and both revealed a wry smile.

Clearly, Kakashi's entire set of interests had been led somewhere strange by someone.

Whether that was good or bad was hard to say.

"Hyuga Kazuya, Genin. I'm good at reconnaissance and archery. I like unknown things, and I dislike things that never change." His words were vague, yet seemed to imply something.

When Minato Namikaze heard Hyuga Kazuya say he was skilled in archery, a look of surprise appeared in his eyes. When he heard what Hyuga Kazuya liked and disliked, Minato Namikaze's gaze drifted, as though he was thinking about something.

After hearing both of their introductions, Minato Namikaze considered that he still needed to test their strength before deciding what level of missions to take them on.

"You two, attack me. Let me see your strength."

"Oh, and use your full power." Minato Namikaze spoke with great confidence.

Hyuga Kazuya and Kakashi looked at each other at the same time, clearly having already made their decision.