Tactical Retreat!

The Copy Ninja's Battle to Defend His Dignity!

One second, Kakashi had still been drowning in the despair and self-doubt of being utterly crushed from every angle. The next, a chilly sensation rose from his waist.

It was a kind of... unbearable lightness of being.

Kakashi: "???"

Stiffly, inch by inch, he lowered his head.

The ninja tool pouch that had accompanied him for over a decade, through every corner of the world, through killing and looting, carrying all his worldly possessions, his very life, and his spiritual sustenance... no!

It!

Was!

Gone!

A chill even more terrifying than being stomped into the ground by Naruto shot from his tailbone straight to the top of his head!

"My pouch!!!"

A shriek so agonized that it broke pitch rang through the post-rain silence.

Kakashi whipped around and saw Naruto Uzumaki standing more than ten meters behind him, well beyond a safe distance. In Naruto's hand was his familiar, damned ninja tool pouch—the pouch closer to him than his own father!

And on Naruto's face was a radiant, devilish smile that made Kakashi's heart pound in terror.

The true way to break a man's spirit was never something like Thousand Years of Death. That was far too low-level.

It was destroying a man's faith completely, on a spiritual level!

"Give me back my pouch!"

Kakashi was truly panicking now. His half-dead fish eyes instantly went wide, bloodshot with terror!

Inside... inside were the signed, gilded, limited hardcover editions of Icha Icha Paradise that he had spent three days and three nights queueing up to snatch from a shady black-market dealer!

Yet Naruto merely smiled at him as he leisurely unzipped the ninja tool pouch.

Unhurriedly, he reached inside and began feeling around.

Under Kakashi's nearly breathless gaze, Naruto finally pulled out the two small booklets, carefully wrapped tight in oil paper.

With a rip, he tore open the oil paper, revealing their gaudy, outrageously suggestive covers.

Naruto raised the two booklets and waved them before Kakashi. The gilded lettering on the covers gleamed beneath the post-rain sunlight—Make-Out Paradise: Special Care Edition.

"Teacher Kakashi," Naruto said with the smile of a three-hundred-pound demon, "if I use these to wipe my ass, do you think I should wipe sideways or vertically to get clean? Or... if I burn them, would you cry on the spot?"

BOOM!!!

Those few words were ten thousand times more powerful than the Water Dragon Bullet from before, exploding directly inside Kakashi's mind!

Wipe... his ass?!

Burn... them?!

Boundless fear and fury erupted like a volcano, but just before they reached his throat, he forcibly suppressed them.

Kakashi's body shuddered. His fear-wide eyes suddenly narrowed, and all panic and dishevelment vanished in an instant, replaced by a bone-chilling calm and danger.

Slowly, he straightened his mud-caked body. A killing intent more solid and colder than anything he had shown in battle gradually spread outward.

This was the true strength of an elite jonin. Everything before had merely been playful frolicking among ants.

"Naruto," he said, his voice no longer hoarse but incomparably low, like ice from the depths of an abyss, "put that down. Otherwise... suffer the consequences."

Yet faced with killing intent that could make ordinary ninjas wet themselves in fear, Naruto merely chuckled, without the slightest trace of apprehension.

"What, you couldn't even fight back when you were getting beaten earlier, but now you've got fighting spirit over two books?"

He shook the "Bible" in his hand, a teasing curve forming on his lips. "Then let's make a deal—bells for books. Fair and reasonable."

Kakashi's killing intent stalled.

He fell silent.

For a full three seconds.

During those three seconds, no one could see the expression beneath his mask.

Perhaps his brain was weighing the pros and cons at an unprecedented speed:

On one side was the survival exercise assigned by the Third Hokage, concerning "teamwork," as well as the duty and dignity of a supervising teacher.

On the other was the happiness of the rest of his life, the sole solace of his lonely soul, the crystallization of art, and his spiritual nourishment!

Was this choice really that difficult?

Kakashi's hand slowly reached toward the two jingling bells at his waist, as though they weighed a thousand tons.

He tore off the bells and stiffly extended his arm, wearing the solemn expression of someone declaring, "I am not compromising. I am making a tactical retreat."

Deep in the woods.

Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno had completely turned to stone.

Their mouths hung open and their eyes were wide as they stared blankly at the surreal scene unfolding in the center of the training ground.

After running at overload, Sasuke's brain CPU had finally burned out completely.

Was this really a life-and-death battle between jonin?

Why had the whole tone suddenly become so sleazy?

So absurd?!

So this was the ultimate form of power?

Not taijutsu, not ninjutsu, but... getting hold of your opponent's weak spot?

Sasuke felt that Naruto's maneuver had utterly shattered his worldview, tossed it into a blender, and turned it into a sticky lump of mush.

He couldn't understand it, but he was deeply shaken.

Beside him, Sakura Haruno's little face was even paler. She covered her mouth, her eyes spinning in circles.

When Naruto stomped Teacher Kakashi into the ground earlier, she had thought Naruto was a demon god—cool and domineering.

But now... she suddenly felt that Naruto seemed... even more terrifying!

This was a filthy game belonging to adults, one she could not understand at all!

At the center of the training ground, the exchange was underway.

Naruto casually took the two bells representing victory in the exercise, then tossed the two "priceless treasures" to Kakashi as if they were garbage.

"Awoo!"

Kakashi let out a suppressed cheer and pounced forward like a starving dog lunging for food, clutching both books tightly to his chest.

First, he carefully inspected the covers and found not a single crease. Then he held them beneath his nose and took a deep breath of that familiar scent of printing ink. Finally, as if he had recovered a lost treasure, he pressed them to his face and rubbed them over and over, revealing a blissful, warped smile like an obsessed pervert.

Integrity?

Dignity?

What were those?

Could they possibly smell as good as the little nurses?

[ Ding! Detected that the host used absolute wis(wit)dom and strat(ega)gy to forcefully shatter every last shred of the Copy Ninja Kakashi Hatake's coolness, reducing his dignity to dust. Successful posturing achieved! ]

[ Reward: S-rank ninjutsu—Rasengan (Perfect Version)! ]

[ Rasengan (Perfect Version): No Shadow Clone assistance required; can be instantly cast with one hand. Its power, form, stability, and chakra consumption have all been optimized to the utmost! Can incorporate chakra nature transformations of any attribute! ]

The delightful notification ringing in his mind made the curve of Naruto's lips widen further.

Looking at Kakashi's dazed, thoroughly broken expression, Naruto curled his lip.

That was it?

The Copy Ninja?

Not fun at all.

He toyed with the two bells in his hand, their metal clinking crisply together, then slowly turned and looked toward the woods that had been quiet for a long time.

"Seen enough?"

Naruto's cold voice, carrying a hint of impatience, exploded beside Sasuke and Sakura's ears like thunder.

"Come out, you two weaklings."