"Kakashi, you still need to train harder. Otherwise, there's no way you'll become a Chunin."
At the dining table, Sarutobi Toru rested his head against his clenched right fist, looking leisurely at Kakashi's bruised, swollen face and wild, disheveled hair as he spoke with utter calm.
Kakashi's face mask had been completely ruined by now, exposing the beauty mark at the corner of his mouth.
This was probably why Kakashi wore a mask in the first place. It seemed Hatake Sakumo had mocked him for looking too much like a girl, so he had started wearing one.
But with his panda eyes and swollen face, that beauty mark was hardly important now.
As Kakashi applied ointment to his face, he rolled his eyes inwardly. With how hard you hit me, forget the Chunin Exam—even a Jōnin test wouldn't be that difficult!
Just then, the sound of the door opening came from the entrance.
A sweep of Sarutobi Toru's spiritual sense told him that Hatake Sakumo had returned home.
Hatake Kakashi, who had been applying ointment, suddenly sprang up like a cat whose tail had been burned. He stuffed the ointment from the table into his clothes, then vanished from Sarutobi Toru's sight.
With a bang, Sarutobi Toru watched Kakashi disappear into his room—and lock the door behind him.
Recalling the faint flash of lightning that had passed over Kakashi just now, Sarutobi Toru could only marvel at how limitless a genius's potential could be.
—When he had fought him just now, he hadn't even been this proficient at using Lightning Release chakra to stimulate his body speed. Yet just to avoid embarrassing himself in front of his father, he was actually faster than when he had been getting beaten up.
"I'm back!" Hatake Sakumo walked in and immediately spotted Sarutobi