At dusk, deep in the Forest of Death, ancient trees towered overhead, their dappled light mingling with deep shadows.
Amid that interplay of light and shadow, the shrill whistle of kunai cutting through the air intertwined with the clangor of thunder.
Golden flashes and blue-white lightning darted between the densely packed trunks at incredible speed, chasing and colliding!
Violent air currents shredded branches and leaves. Before the fragments could fall, another shock wave swept them back into the air.
Nearby, on the branch of a giant tree, Kakashi stared with his eyes wide, not daring to relax for an instant.
Even so, he could barely catch two blurred afterimages as they flashed past.
More often, he could not even follow their afterimages. Only the clash of metal or the roar of ninjutsu from dozens of meters away told him which direction the two had just passed through.
The fighters were Higashino Shinichi and Minato Namikaze.
This was why Shinichi called himself the busiest person in the shinobi world.
His days were packed with all sorts of tasks, yet amid that hectic schedule, he still forced himself to make time to discuss training methods for Lightning Release Chakra Mode with Minato and Kakashi.
After their discussions, Shinichi and Minato naturally took to the field themselves. Minato used their sparring matches to hone the Wind Release Nintaijutsu Shinichi had taught him, while Shinichi refined his own Lightning Release Nintaijutsu by fighting Minato.
After each match, the three gathered again to review and exchange ideas.
Kakashi, whose talent for Lightning Release was extraordinary and who watched the entire fight from the sidelines, offered observations and inspiration, while Minato, blessed with exceptional reflexes,
and an eye for the smallest details, analyzed and distilled what they had learned from the exchange.
Shinichi then combined their