A refusal.
Clean and decisive, leaving no room for negotiation.
Damn, he refused. He actually refused! That wasn't how this was supposed to go! Weren't geniuses supposed to be drawn to one another???
For an instant, Senju Chen's smile froze on his face.
He tilted his head up, looking into Kakashi Hatake's still, unfathomable eyes. The eagerness and anticipation on his face froze for a moment, as though swept by a cold wind, then slowly faded, little by little.
He lowered his eyes, his long eyelashes casting small shadows beneath them. That dejected look was enough to stir pity in any softhearted adult.
"...I see."
His voice was soft, carrying the hurt and disappointment peculiar to a rejected child. "Sorry. I assumed too much."
He withdrew his outstretched little hand, clenched it a few times, then bowed to Kakashi. Turning, he took small steps into the stream of students leaving school without looking back.
That small retreating figure looked lonely and forlorn.
Kakashi stood where he was, motionless.
He watched that figure disappear around the street corner. Inside his pockets, his tightly clenched fists slowly relaxed.
The inexplicable irritation in his heart did not fade with the other boy's departure. Instead, it grew stronger.
He didn't understand.
That boy named Senju Chen was full of contradictions.
He clearly possessed terrifying insight that could see through everything, yet insisted on concealing it behind the most innocent, guileless expression.
He could clearly toy with an idiot like Uchiha Inabi in an instant, yet insisted on acting helpless.
Those words just now, those remarks about "comrades" and "paths," had been as blunt as a sharp knife, slicing precisely through the walls he had built out of indifference.
Yet now, he had given up so easily?
Like a child denied a beloved toy, throwing a little tantrum before obediently walking away.
Was I imagining things?
Kakashi's brows knitted tightly.
Or... is this another one of his disguises?
He couldn't figure it out. That feeling of being unable to control things made him deeply uncomfortable.
However, Kakashi soon discovered that he had been far too naive.
Senju Chen indeed never approached him to talk again.
But like air, he was everywhere.
The next day, Kakashi went alone to Training Ground Three to practice throwing shuriken.
He had only thrown two rounds when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a figure clumsily imitating his movements at the other end of the training ground.
It was Senju Chen.
He didn't look over, merely focused on his own target, throwing kunai again and again. Eight out of ten throws missed, and the remaining two barely caught the target's edge. It looked absurd and laughable.
Kakashi snorted coldly, ignored him, and returned his attention to his own training.
Yet somehow, the irregular "thunk, thunk, thunk" behind him struck his heart like rhythmic drumbeats, keeping him from fully settling his mind.
On the third day, Kakashi practiced the Three Basic Techniques.
Hand seals, then the Body Flicker Technique.
When he appeared on the trunk of a large tree, he looked up to find Senju Chen sitting on a higher branch, swinging his little legs. He held a freshly bought skewer of dumplings, happily eating them one by one.
Seeing Kakashi, he even waved amicably, saying through a mouthful, "Oh, Hatake! What a coincidence."
Kakashi: "..."
Expressionless, he jumped down from the tree and went somewhere else.
The fourth day, the fifth day...
Wherever Kakashi went, he always "happened to run into" that boy.
When he practiced water walking by the river, Senju Chen caught fish downstream.
When he practiced setting traps in the woods, Senju Chen gathered medicinal herbs nearby.
He never came closer or struck up a conversation. He merely appeared within Kakashi's field of vision in a harmless manner, as though he belonged there.
He was like sticky taffy, impossible to shake off or tear away.
Like a frog being slowly boiled, Kakashi was having his patience worn away, bit by bit.
He even developed an absurd impression-were the two of them the only people in all of Konoha this "hardworking"?
Interesting.
Senju Chen felt a trace of mischievous pleasure.
Is this the loneliness of a genius?
He knew very well that a genius of Kakashi's caliber was extraordinarily aloof and sensitive inside.
His father was a hero renowned throughout the Shinobi World, and he himself stood above everyone his age. In his world, there was no one walking the same path.
That loneliness was both his armor and his most fatal weakness.
Anyone who forced their way in would only be wounded by his icy blade.
But if someone simply stayed quietly at the edge of his lonely world, letting him grow accustomed to their presence, like Might Guy, who would later constantly come challenge him whenever he had the chance.
He had to make him realize that someone else in this world left home before dawn and only returned late at night, just like him.
Then, without his noticing, a small opening would be corroded into that armor called "loneliness."
Hatake Sakumo... Konoha's White Fang.
Senju Chen's gaze seemed to look through Kakashi's solitary figure toward somewhere far more distant.
A tragic figure who should have become a hero, only to be driven to his death by public opinion in the village.
When he watched the anime in his previous life, he had felt deep regret over this character's ending.
A ninja who abandoned a mission for his comrades should never have met such an end, no matter what.
And at this moment, that regret turned into the coldest calculation.
Saving Hatake Sakumo will not only change the course of Kakashi's fate, but also put Konoha's White Fang's top-tier fighting strength at my disposal.
That debt of gratitude will be enough to make the future Copy Ninja my staunchest ally.
So, Kakashi...
Senju Chen watched the white-haired boy in the distance, who was growing increasingly irritated by his "harassment." An almost imperceptible smile curved his lips.
Don't rush. The show has only just begun.
Finally, one evening.
Kakashi finished his day's training and was about to head home.
As he passed a clearing, his footsteps abruptly stopped.
In the clearing, Senju Chen held a short wooden sword, imitating the opening stance of some sword technique.
His movements were immature, even somewhat distorted, but Kakashi recognized them at a glance.
That was... a Hatake Style Kenjutsu stance!
Although it was only the most basic move, there was no mistaking its essence, that intent to use the waist and abdomen as the core to draw on the strength of the entire body!
How did he know it?!
A towering wave surged through Kakashi's heart.
Hatake Style Kenjutsu was a secret family inheritance. Aside from his father teaching him, it could never have been passed to outsiders!
He must have secretly picked it up by chance!
Anger rushed to his head. Unable to stay silent any longer, Kakashi flashed before Senju Chen, his voice cold enough to freeze. "What are you doing!"
Startled by the sudden rebuke, Senju Chen dropped the wooden sword with a clatter.
He raised his head. Seeing Kakashi's furious eyes, bewilderment and a trace of hurt appeared on his face.
"I... I'm practicing."
"Who taught you!" Kakashi stepped closer, his presence frightening.
"N-no one taught me." Senju Chen shrank back like a terrified little animal. "I just saw you practicing like this every day and thought it looked really cool, so... so I tried copying it..."
"Stealing my techniques?" Kakashi's gaze grew sharper.
"N-no!" Senju Chen hurriedly waved his hands, so anxious that his eyes reddened slightly. "I just thought... thought that holding your sword that way seemed uncomfortable for your wrist."
Kakashi froze.
Mustering his courage, Senju Chen picked up the wooden sword and clumsily demonstrated Kakashi's grip.
"Look, every time you exert force, you use your arm and wrist. It's really fast, but... but it feels like the power stops here." He pointed to his wrist.
Then he changed his stance, lowering his body slightly and twisting his waist. The wooden sword traced an entirely different path.
"My sister said real strength should be like a whip. It takes root beneath your feet, lashes out from your waist, and only reaches your hands at the end. Wouldn't this... make it flow a little better?"
He tilted his little face up, his bright black eyes filled with pure curiosity and puzzlement, as though he truly were only asking about a question that had troubled him for a long time.
Boom!
It was as though thunder had exploded inside Kakashi's mind.
A whip...
Power lashing out from the waist...
His father, Hatake Sakumo, had said those exact same words to him when he first began learning swordsmanship!
But he had been too young then to understand their deeper meaning, only feeling that using his arms was more direct and faster. Over time, his father had stopped insisting and let him develop according to his own habits.
Yet now, this principle had come from the mouth of a five-year-old Senju orphan who had never received systematic swordsmanship training!
Moreover, from an observer's perspective, he had pinpointed the most fundamental problem in Kakashi's swordsmanship, one that even his father had chosen to overlook!
This wasn't stealing techniques!
Someone stealing techniques could only learn the form, not the essence, much less see through the core method of generating power!
This was... talent!
A terrifying talent that transcended hard work and practice, something bordering on "instinct"!
His earlier victory over Uchiha Inabi hadn't been manipulation or prediction... he was innately able to see the flow of power, to see the essence of every move!
Kakashi stood rooted to the spot, as though all the blood in his body had frozen.
Looking at the innocent, guileless child before him, he felt a shudder from the depths of his soul for the first time.
It was the instinctive shock and uncertainty a genius felt upon encountering another genius... one even more of a "monster" than himself.
"Um... Hatake?" Looking at the stunned Kakashi, Senju Chen ventured cautiously, "Did I... say something wrong?"
"..."
Kakashi remained silent for a long time.
He gave Senju Chen a long, searching look, then bent down, picked up the wooden sword the boy had dropped, and held it out to him.
"Your path..."
He spoke, his voice no longer icy, but carrying a complicated hoarseness that even he himself hadn't noticed.
"...Perhaps you could let me take a look."