Naruto, stay away from me!

Year 58 of Konoha.

A clearing in the middle of the Forest of Death had changed beyond recognition from what it had been just over two years ago.

The most conspicuous feature was the decades-old greenery the First Hokage had created with a single Wood Release: Advent of a World of Trees.

Compared to three years ago, aside from being several times lusher overall, the strangest thing was that these trees seemed to have learned chakra nature transformation... One patch was charred black by lightning, another was on fire, and another looked as bare as if a typhoon had swept through it.

Of course, these areas generally only needed tidying up between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon. Anyone coming early in the morning or at night would find the trees even lusher than before, without any visible signs of damage.

Besides that, the entire clearing had been converted into a special training ground, dotted with boulders of various sizes. A closer look made it obvious that it had been divided into different areas. Some were clearly for practicing taijutsu, others for tree climbing and Water Walking, and others for... barbecuing? Oh, for practicing Fire Release.

But why did all the damage in the areas for practicing the various release techniques look like it had been caused by taijutsu?

"Kakashi-sensei! Take this! Ultimate Wind Leaping Dragon-Driving Palm Roaring Dance, Form Three!"

On the training ground, Kakashi wore his mask and leaned against a towering tree, engrossed in a copy of Icha Icha Paradise. Suddenly, with a loud shout, Naruto charged at him, nearly two heads taller than he had been before.

His footwork used a modified Body Flicker Technique combined with Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track. Chakra surged around him and gathered in his right fist, forming an enormous vortex of hurricane-force wind that roared toward Kakashi.

As Naruto hurtled forward, the gale cleared a path for him, adding even more speed. Countless tiny wind blades spilled from the hurricane gathered around his right fist, carving deep gashes several feet long along his route.

From start to finish, Naruto had formed only one hand seal. In Kakashi's eyes, this variant of Gale Palm, which resembled nintaijutsu, was very crude. But Naruto had poured far too much chakra into it. That one punch contained nearly dozens of times Kakashi's entire supply. It was pure stat overload.

And...

After testing his movement and discovering that the pressure wave had locked him in place, leaving him unable to budge, Kakashi twisted his mouth and stared blankly skyward with his dead-fish eyes. An instant before Naruto made contact, his body dissolved into a puff of white smoke.

Naruto's punch, meanwhile, continued forward without losing any momentum.

BOOM!

With a tremendous crash, the tree, so thick it would take several people to encircle it, was punched straight through. Its middle section shattered under the brute force, while the gale roared onward unabated, gouging a trench more than ten meters long ahead.

Kakashi jumped down from another nearby tree and stared at Naruto as though he were looking at a monster.

How had his teacher's wife given birth to a monster like this?

His knack for naming things was certainly inherited straight from his teacher, too. But wasn't this level of Wind Release mastery a little ridiculous? Why was he still relying mainly on taijutsu to deal damage when he was already using Wind Release?

"Hehe, Kakashi-sensei, what do you think? That expert uncle taught me how to fire off pressure waves that lock people in place. I combined that with those special taijutsu techniques Sasuke taught me earlier and came up with this move myself."

Kakashi: "..."

He knew those techniques of Sasuke's too. He had even learned a little of the Eight Gates Technique. So why couldn't he pull off a move like this?

Oh, right. He was too short on mana. Never mind, then.

"Everything else is fine, but it makes a little too much noise. Sure, they can't dodge once you've locked them down, but they'll have run off before you can even do that."

After choosing his words, Kakashi shook his head helplessly.

He was just about to say something else, but when he saw the tiny cuts Naruto's own chakra wind blades had left on his hands healing at a speed visible to the naked eye, he shut his mouth again.

For a beast whose constitution was becoming impossible for him to even comprehend, that kind of drawback hardly counted as a drawback.

"At its core, that move of yours is still taijutsu. Its power and ability to cut off escape routes are pretty decent, but there's a bit of academic misconduct going on here."

Just then, a somewhat lazy voice came from the wooden cabin nearby.

Three tomoe spun in his eyes as purple light flickered within them. After glancing at the flow of chakra inside Naruto, Sasuke's mouth twitched.

Naruto had most likely taken what Guy, Kakashi, and Sasuke had taught him, mixed it with the unconventional taijutsu techniques like Evening Elephant and Night Guy that Sasuke had told him about while shooting the breeze, then slapped this shit together at random.

Still, using a massive amount of chakra to cosplay the pure-taijutsu air cannons of Evening Elephant did count as a bit of academic misconduct.

But credit where it was due: Sasuke seemed to have led him astray, and Naruto's creativity really was becoming impressive. If his enormous chakra reserves were too difficult to control, he could forget about fine control for now and gradually master it through use.

In the end, he was still heading down the taijutsu and senjutsu route anyway.

"Still, a dead last is a dead last. Little bro, you've got more training to do. Weak taijutsu, sloppy chakra control, loose footwork, slow reactions. That's all you've got?"

Faced with Naruto's expectant gaze, Sasuke naturally gave him his wholehearted approval.

"You! Hmph! Sasuke! Don't get too full of yourself! I'll surpass you any day now!"

Naruto snorted but said nothing more. Sasuke had always been ahead of him ever since they had started hanging out. Worse still, some time ago, after finally finishing an argument with the Fox in his mind one night, he had dreamed of an old man with ringed eyes and two horns on his head, who had babbled cryptically while teaching him how to pet the Fox.

Then, the very next day, Sasuke had told him about dreaming of the Sage of Six Paths and all that, even showing off what the sage had taught him. Naruto had been too embarrassed to tell Sasuke about his own experience.

Still, it wouldn't be long now. It was fine if he couldn't win at the moment. Worst case, he could gang up on Sasuke after a while. After several years of petting, the Fox was finally becoming a little obedient.

"Keep dreaming, then." Sasuke patted Naruto's shoulder, pressed his lips together, and shook his head. Only when he had nearly enraged Naruto enough to awaken a Sharingan did he walk toward Kakashi with a satisfied smile.

"Kakashi-sensei, have you eaten..."

SKREEEE-

Before he finished speaking, Chidori's piercing cry suddenly rang out. Still smiling, Sasuke's left hand flashed with lightning, and his entire body was swiftly wrapped in its glow. Moving like a phantom, he crossed more than ten meters in an instant and drove a fist toward Kakashi's heart. At the same time, he activated his modified Lightning Release version of Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon combined with Suction Palm. Invisible lightning release chakra flickered as an electromagnetic field bound Kakashi, locking him in place.

Kakashi sighed helplessly. Realizing that even moving a finger took effort, he simply stopped trying altogether. He did not react even as he watched Sasuke go straight for his heart.

There was nothing he could do. He had been sensitive to it at first, but by now he was desensitized. Ever since he had given Naruto a Thousand Years of Death, he had felt that Sasuke kept going for his heart, whether deliberately or otherwise.

PFFT-

Lightning pierced his chest, and Kakashi once again turned into a puff of white smoke.

"Tsk, tsk. Kakashi-sensei, why do you always use clones?"

"Because you two..."

PFFT-

Kakashi's voice came from behind Sasuke, but halfway through his sentence, his pupils abruptly widened. He stared blankly at the fist wrapped in a gentle breeze that had pierced his chest. Before turning into white smoke, he turned his head and saw Naruto's brilliant smile.

"How was that, Kakashi-sensei? Wind can slip in quietly too, you know."

The white light dissipated. After a long while passed without another Kakashi appearing, Sasuke and Naruto stared at each other. Naruto scanned the area with the Mind's Eye of the Kagura and discovered that Kakashi's real body was not here at all.

"What the heck! Kakashi-sensei went to the Bookstore to line up for Icha Icha Paradise! We only wrecked three Shadow Clones...

"If I'd known, I'd have given him a Thousand Years of Death! He's always reading those filthy books! And he won't even let me read them..." As he spoke, Naruto stared at Sasuke with rather dubious intentions.

Sasuke: "..."

You big dumbass! What are you trying to do?!