"Thousand Years of Death!"
With a piercing scream, Naruto Uzumaki shot into the air like a skyrocket.
He clutched his rear with both hands, tears and snot streaming down his face as he traced a less-than-graceful arc through the air.
"Splash!"
A huge spray erupted from the little river beside the training ground as Naruto plunged in headfirst, his legs twitching weakly twice above the water.
Son Goten stood where he was without so much as lifting an eyelid.
Still chewing the last scraps of seaweed, he offered a muffled assessment.
"Terrible form. Zero points for the landing."
Kakashi kept his hands in the tiger seal as he watched the utterly untroubled Goten, a little more helplessness creeping into his dead-fish eye.
These two brats were each more of a headache than the other.
Since he'd dealt with one, he might as well take care of the other.
As their teacher, he had to establish absolute authority over disobedient students like these.
"Since you have so much time to comment on others, you're next."
Kakashi's voice drifted lightly over.
At the same time, his figure faded from where he stood.
The Body Flicker Technique again.
Hidden behind the bushes, Sasuke Uchiha stared intently at the training ground.
Even though he had been concentrating fully just now, he still hadn't caught Kakashi's path.
By the time his eyes focused again, Kakashi was directly behind Son Goten.
Less than half a meter away.
For a jonin, that distance was a killing zone.
Kakashi didn't hesitate.
He didn't even need ninjutsu to handle a brat fresh out of the Ninja Academy.
He formed the hand seal that had left Naruto in such agony once again.
He pressed the index and middle fingers of both hands together, concentrating his strength in his fingertips.
His target was the vulnerable spot at Son Goten's rear.
Konoha Taijutsu secret art: Thousand Years of Death!
Kakashi recited it silently, his fingers turning into blades as he thrust them forward viciously.
Crude as this move was, it was extremely effective.
Enough to leave this arrogant brat laid up for half a day and teach him a lesson.
Son Goten still didn't turn around.
He didn't even make a move to dodge.
Only at the instant those two fingers were about to touch his body did his previously relaxed muscles tighten.
"Thud!"
There was none of the expected muffled sound of fingers sinking into flesh.
Nor was there a scream that hurt just to hear.
What followed instead was a sharp, grating crack.
"Crack."
It was like forcefully jabbing a fragile wooden stick into hard granite.
Kakashi's movement stopped dead.
His expression froze beneath his mask.
A piercing pain shot from his fingertips to his central nervous system like an electric current.
It was the signal of dislocated finger joints.
His fingers hadn't penetrated even a fraction; instead, the tremendous recoil had bent them at a bizarre angle.
This feeling...
He wasn't poking a human body at all.
He was poking a solid plate of refined steel!
"How is that possible..."
A fine layer of sweat beaded on Kakashi's forehead.
Although he hadn't strengthened his fingers with chakra, this was still the rigorously tempered body of a jonin.
He could easily punch through even a tree trunk.
Yet now, this brat's rear was harder than stone?
Son Goten slowly turned his head.
His neck gave several crisp cracks, and a chilling, false smile sat on his face.
Although there was nothing behind him, in Kakashi's perception, the brat before him seemed to have become a Great Ape ready to devour someone.
That primitive, savage aura of wildness washed over him.
"Kakashi-sensei."
Son Goten turned around, his gaze falling on Kakashi's red, swollen, trembling hand.
He grinned, revealing a mouthful of gleaming white teeth.
"My rear is very precious."
He raised one finger and gently wagged it.
"If it were a gorgeous woman with a smoking-hot figure like Anko-sensei, or a gentle older woman like Kurenai Yuhi-sensei, I might play along and enjoy it just a tiny bit."
Son Goten's smile gradually vanished, his gaze turning cold and disgusted.
"But when it comes to a grown man in a mask..."
"I have absolutely no interest in your fingers."
"On the contrary, I find it disgusting."
Hidden in the distant bushes, Sakura Haruno gaped.
She rubbed her eyes, wondering whether she'd seen it wrong.
Kakashi-sensei... had actually come off worse?
And with such an embarrassing move, at that?
Beside her, Sasuke gripped a branch tightly.
The bark crumbled beneath his grasp.
He had seen it clearly.
Son Goten hadn't used the Substitution Technique or any defensive ninjutsu.
He had taken it entirely with his body.
Was that even a human body?
Even a ninja who specialized in Taijutsu couldn't train his muscles to that extent and withstand that while completely unguarded.
Just what kind of monster was this dead last?
At the center of the training ground.
Without any hesitation, Kakashi pushed off the ground with his toes and slid more than ten meters backward, putting a safe distance between them.
He shook his already numb right hand, trying to ease the pain.
Those two fingers were horribly red and swollen.
It looked like he could forget about holding chopsticks for the next few days.
"That's quite a surprise."
Kakashi's dead-fish eye finally opened fully, his gaze turning sharp.
"To reach this level through physical defense alone... it looks like all the previous records were false."
He glanced at Naruto, still floundering in the river, then at Goten's indifferent expression before him.
The quality of this year's rookies was a little too polarized.
Son Goten rolled his wrists, then twisted his waist.
His bones let out a dense series of explosive cracks, like firecrackers going off together.
"The warm-up's over, sensei."
Son Goten dropped his flippant demeanor.
He lowered his center of gravity slightly and planted his feet apart on the grass.
Fine cracks began to appear beneath his feet in the previously level ground.
An invisible pressure spread outward from him.
The force of his presence made even the surrounding air feel heavy.
"Since you like playing with dirty moves so much, you'd better be ready to pay the price."
Son Goten raised his head, a fire of battle lust burning in his black eyes.
It was an instinct deep within his Saiyan blood.
"I don't like being made a monkey of, especially by a man who doesn't even dare show his face."
He raised his right hand and clenched it into a fist.
It wasn't a ninja's standard way of making a fist, but something more savage, more primitive.
"Now, I'm going to get just a little serious."
Kakashi's gaze sharpened, and he instinctively pulled a kunai from his ninja tool pouch, holding it across his chest.
That intense sense of danger was frantically assailing his nerves.
He felt as though a primordial beast had fixed its eyes on him.
"Sensei, I'm going to tear this forest apart."
Son Goten smiled at Kakashi in the distance.
"Remember to stay far away, or you'll die."
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