What Exactly Is Kitahara Kaede?

Hatake Kakashi had originally been fairly satisfied with his own strength. After all, even Kitahara Kaede had said that he was the renowned Konoha's Technician, among the first tier of experts below Kage Level.

He was confident when dealing with ordinary shinobi, but what if his opponent was a Kage Level expert?

So what?

He had never really considered that question before. Experts of that level were not people one encountered casually. It could even be said that unless war broke out between villages, such experts would rarely appear before ordinary people.

But conversely, once beings of that caliber personally took action, it often meant a village-scale war might be involved.

For example, the Konoha Crush Plan that had been weighing heavily on his mind.

Especially with a Kage Level expert like Orochimaru involved, the Konoha Crush Plan—which had initially seemed to have little chance of succeeding—now possessed a genuine possibility of success.

And it seemed that the Konoha Crush Plan was not far off.

Although Kitahara Kaede had not stated exactly when the so-called Konoha Crush Plan would take place, if Hatake Kakashi assumed it truly existed, that he had not fallen under some genjutsu, and that Kitahara Kaede was not simply making a casual joke...

Then, judging by the timeline, it should not be too far away—at most one or two years.

He had reached that conclusion based on Uchiha Sasuke's appearance in the video.

Sasuke looked to be around twelve or thirteen in the video, and he did not seem to be a Ninja Academy student anymore.

If he was no longer an academy student yet still had dealings with Kakashi, and Kakashi had even personally used the Sealing Evil Technique on him, then there was only one possibility: he had become Kakashi's subordinate.

Kakashi recalled how the Third Hokage had once asked whether he was willing to become a team leader, and he had not refused.

In truth, he understood what the Third Hokage was thinking. He probably believed that Kakashi had spent too long in the Anbu and that his personality had become somewhat too gloomy, so he wanted him to become a Jonin team leader.

This was not the first time. None of his previous students had passed his test, but Sasuke apparently had been an exception.

"Orochimaru's target is Sasuke?" Hatake Kakashi immediately realized it. He had seen the thing that his future self in the footage had sealed with the Sealing Evil Technique.

The Cursed Seal!

He had encountered and investigated this power before. Back when he was in the Anbu—and even when he had been in Danzo's Root—he had seen it. Moreover, Orochimaru's disciple Anko was still in Konoha.

She bore a similar Cursed Seal as well.

There were not many people or matters that still concerned Hatake Kakashi. Among the Ninja Academy students, there were probably only two.

One was the last remaining member of his childhood friend Obito Uchiha's clan in Konoha—Uchiha Sasuke, the final survivor of the Uchiha Clan, one of the Shinobi World's great clans.

The other was Uzumaki Naruto, the only child of his teacher, the Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze.

Now it seemed that Orochimaru had set his sights on Uchiha Sasuke. He had even planted such a troublesome thing as the Cursed Seal on him and intended to lure Sasuke into defecting to him.

Based on what Kakashi knew, that was entirely possible. That child, Uchiha Sasuke, possessed an astonishing obsession with revenge.

But it made sense. If it had been Kakashi himself, he would have been the same. His entire clan had been massacred—how could he possibly not seek revenge?

Although Kakashi did not know Sasuke's situation in detail, he knew some things. Sasuke ranked first among his year at the Ninja Academy and was praised as being worthy of the bloodline of the prestigious Uchiha Clan.

But in Kakashi's eyes, the title of first in the academy carried something of a childish quality.

Even geniuses came in different grades. Being first in one's year could indeed be called genius, but it only meant one had crossed the threshold into genius.

Above those who ranked first in their year were geniuses capable of graduating early, and then there were super-geniuses like Kakashi himself, who had already been a Chunin at the age when others entered the academy.

Uchiha Itachi was different. He was a genius whose shinobi talent Hatake Kakashi acknowledged as surpassing his own. Kakashi had scarcely seen such a gifted figure in his life. Perhaps the last had been his teacher, Minato Namikaze.

Given Uchiha Sasuke's current circumstances, even if he trained with every ounce of his strength, he could never become Uchiha Itachi's match.

If that was the case, then being beguiled by Orochimaru became a possibility.

But would things truly develop in that direction?

Hatake Kakashi did not know, but he knew one thing: this matter had to be taken seriously.

Should he report it to the Third Hokage?

But would the Third Hokage believe him? How was he supposed to explain the Diary System, or rather, could this Diary System be shown to others?

Just thinking about it gave him a terrible headache!

What exactly was this Kitahara Kaede?

Kitahara Kaede had no idea that Hatake Kakashi had already set his sights on him. He got up early the next morning. As the captain, he needed to go to the Mission Hall in the Hokage Building to collect a mission.

Some Konoha missions could be claimed independently, while others were assigned by the Higher-ups. The stronger a shinobi was, the more likely they were to be assigned difficult missions, whereas ordinary shinobi were generally assigned lower-ranked ones.

With their squad's current composition of one Chunin and two Genin, they would generally be assigned C-Rank Missions. B-Rank Missions required every member to be a Chunin.

As for A-Rank Missions, the team needed at least one Jonin to accept them.

What surprised Kitahara Kaede, however, was that the person overseeing the mission center today was the Third Hokage himself. The Hokage did not usually personally oversee the mission center and issue missions; there were only a few such days each month.

Kitahara Kaede's feelings toward the Third Hokage were complicated. In all sorts of conspiracy theories from his previous life, the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, had been portrayed as some kind of dark, supreme mastermind working behind the scenes.

But Kitahara Kaede did not feel that way. Perhaps the man had this problem or that, and perhaps many matters had not been handled perfectly, but he was certainly not as dark as those conspiracy theories depicted him to be.

Or rather, Kitahara Kaede felt that Kishimoto had simply retconned too much. After all, in the early days, the Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen had been called the strongest Hokage in history.

Still, this was a real world. Many of the issues in Naruto from his previous life could be explained away as retcons, but in this real world, there might be other explanations. Kitahara Kaede did not dare gamble on it.

"Kitahara Kaede Squad, right?" Sarutobi Hiruzen glanced at Kitahara Kaede before him, then said, "As it happens, there's a C-Rank Mission here for you to handle!"