Everyone Had Underestimated Him

Kakashi silently returned home. Looking at the empty house, he could not help letting out a faint sigh.

Still, after all those years of coming and going alone, he had long since grown used to it.

Closing the front door, Kakashi plopped down on the floor, and a pained look appeared on his face.

"Hiss... that hurts!"

Kakashi narrowed his eyes and rubbed his shoulder. It really hurt like hell now.

That guy Xia Yan had really made Kakashi suffer. Even though they were only sparring, once the fighting started, they had both found it a little hard to hold back.

So, although they had restrained themselves and avoided using too many techniques, they had indeed started using ninjutsu.

Kakashi knew Xia Yan could use Water Release. On their mission, he had already witnessed that terrifying Water Release, which seemed to have been inherited from the Second Hokage.

That was no big deal in itself. Plenty of people knew the Second Hokage's techniques, and as an Anbu squad captain, it was perfectly normal for Xia Yan to know some of them.

But Xia Yan's sudden use of Earth Release had caught Kakashi somewhat by surprise.

He had to admit that this former classmate and current captain of his seemed more talented than he had imagined, and a little too formidable as well.

In fact, the vast majority of ninja were born with only one chakra nature. They had to train to acquire chakra of other natures later in life.

But some people were born with two or even more chakra natures. Such people were generally called geniuses.

Kakashi had been born with two chakra natures, and he was very good at Lightning Release and Earth Release.

During their mission together, he had only seen Xia Yan use Water Release, and Xia Yan had supposedly been unremarkable back at school.

So he had always assumed that Xia Yan only had a single chakra nature and had hardly guarded against his Earth Release at all.

"Looks like everyone underestimated the captain."

Only after his shoulder felt considerably better did Kakashi sigh helplessly. He felt that his captain had hit a little too hard.

Perhaps he had spent so long in the Anbu that he brought that same ruthlessness even to a spar.

And his captain's tactics had truly been nimble and unpredictable.

Recalling their earlier fight, Xia Yan had appeared to use the Double Suicide Decapitation Technique to hide underground, but Kakashi had only discovered afterward that what lay underground was actually a shadow clone.

When he had used an Earth-Style Wall to block the attack, Xia Yan had already created a shadow clone, while his real body had simply hidden himself away.

Using that tactic to divert Kakashi's attention toward the shadow clone underground, he had then attacked directly from behind him.

"Apart from playing a considerable role in our initial exchanges of taijutsu and ninjutsu, my Sharingan was effectively shut out by the captain afterward."

The more Kakashi recalled, the more he realized that Xia Yan's attacks seemed to have had a very clear purpose.

And that purpose seemed to have been guarding against his Sharingan from beginning to end.

He could even say that Xia Yan had calculated every step, making full use of certain shortcomings of the Sharingan to launch surprise attacks.

And Kakashi himself had not been sufficiently proficient in using the Sharingan to begin with, before being drawn completely into the rhythm of Xia Yan's attacks.

It was only natural that this had resulted in his defeat.

"Was he really countering the Sharingan? But why would the captain know so much about it?"

Kakashi considered it seriously, but after thinking for a long time, he realized he could not seem to reach any conclusion at all.

In the end, he could only classify Xia Yan's combat tactics as "extremely successful improvisation." He could think of no other explanation.

As Kakashi saw it, Xia Yan probably had a pretty good relationship with the Uchiha Clan.

Uchiha Sora, who had watched from the sidelines the entire time, seemed to be a friend of the captain's.

Kakashi had also discovered that his guess had indeed been correct: Uchiha Sora had once been classmates with both him and Xia Yan.

And while Xia Yan had still been at school, this girl had been his deskmate all along.

"Classmates from school, huh."

Feeling that his shoulder no longer hurt so much, Kakashi lay straight down on the tatami.

Recalling that brief year he had spent at school-or perhaps only a few months-he suddenly felt as though he had been drowning in the sorrows of the past for too long.

It had truly made him miss far too many things worth cherishing and looking back on.

Obito, Rin, Might Guy, and Xia Yan...

Kakashi took a deep breath. He had already lost far too much.

Especially when he only looked back after losing them and realized that they were all the things he should have treasured most, the pain in his heart became even greater.

"Even if failure is the main theme of life, I don't want to fail again.

Obito, Rin, I'll listen to Xia Yan. I'll carry your wills with me and live on bravely..."

Uchiha Sora returned home alone, her head still spinning a little.

She had truly never imagined that her deskmate, who had been born a commoner, gone to the battlefield at around eight years old, and left such a deep impression on her as a child, would be so formidable.

Five or six years ago, when Xia Yan had left school, Uchiha Sora had been deeply upset.

Because she had known they were facing a war, and in a war like that, someone like Xia Yan probably had no way of surviving at all.

Yet there had been nothing she could do about any of it, and she had been sad for a long time because of that.

Only as the situation on the front lines steadily improved, and other classmates sent back some news of Xia Yan, had she learned that he was all right.

Time slowly moved forward, and when it was her turn to graduate, she had followed other members of the Uchiha Clan to the battlefield in the Land of Whirlpools.

Xia Yan's face was no longer so clear in her mind. After all, they had not seen each other for five years, and they were both still growing.

All she could remember was that Xia Yan had hair as white as snow, just like Kakashi's.

Although she could no longer remember his face, that person, that name-Fukami Natsuhiko-remained etched in her mind.

When the war finally ended, she too returned to the village, but to her surprise, Xia Yan was still nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps he was too busy, or perhaps he had other missions?

She did not really know. She could still only learn roughly how her old deskmate was doing through other people.

What she had never expected, however, was that the training ground in the Uchiha Clan Compound would already be occupied today, leaving her no choice but to train at a training ground elsewhere in the village.

And it was that very choice that had allowed her to see Xia Yan again.

It had also shown her just how terrifying Xia Yan had become...