After Hatake Sakumo's funeral, the skies over Konoha cleared, but the dark clouds hanging over the Hatake residence only grew heavier.
The courtyard that had once rung with clear laughter and the sound of blades slicing through the air now held nothing but deathly silence.
Kakashi Hatake had changed.
Apart from Senju Chen and Might Guy, he no longer spoke to anyone. Every day before dawn, he appeared before the training posts in the courtyard and began a frenzy of training that bordered on self-abuse. Swinging his blade, forming hand seals, throwing kunai... over and over, until every inch of muscle in his body cried out in aching protest, until sweat soaked his clothes. Only then would he stop like a stone statue and stare blankly at the sky.
There was no longer any emotion in those eyes, only the numbness of being hollowed out. His father's final letter was like a brand that would never heal, seared into the depths of his soul-"A ninja's rules come before everything."
He had to grow stronger, stronger than anyone else. Strong enough to uphold the rules, strong enough never to make the same "mistake" his father had.
Senju Chen had come over almost every day these past few days.
He said little, simply bringing the meals Sister Shizune had prepared and setting them quietly beneath the veranda, then sitting not far from Kakashi to watch him train.
He was like a patient hunter observing his prey. He watched the initial emptiness in Kakashi's eyes slowly gather into a flame of obsession; he watched him turn all his grief and pain into an extreme thirst for power.
Meanwhile, earth-shattering changes were also taking place within Senju Chen's body. That vast store of kenjutsu memories belonging to "Konoha's White Fang" was undergoing a painful yet efficient fusion with his five-year-old body.
His brain knew how to swing a blade, but his muscles could not yet keep up. Often, in the dead of night, he would close his eyes in his room and simulate those lethal trajectories in his mind, over and over. With every simulation, he could feel his body seemingly aligning a little more closely with those memories.
It felt like forcibly cramming the soul of a legend into a child's shell.
That afternoon, Might Guy came charging in again.
"Kakashi! Let's wash away our sorrow with the sweat of youth!" He struck his signature pose and flashed a gleaming set of white teeth.
Kakashi paid him no heed. The wooden sword in his hand traced a fierce arc and struck the post hard with a dull thud.
Being ignored did not discourage Might Guy in the slightest. His gaze shifted to Senju Chen, who sat in a daze nearby.
"Chen! Since Kakashi hasn't fired up, let's ignite the flames of youth ourselves!"
Senju Chen had been immersed in his insights into kenjutsu, but Guy's shout brought him back to his senses. Looking at Guy's vibrant face, he suddenly had a thought.
Perhaps this is an opportunity. An opportunity to test how far my body's fusion has progressed, and at the same time... add more fuel to Kakashi's fire.
"Sure, Guy." Senju Chen stood, brushed the dust from his trousers, and gave him an innocent, harmless smile.
"This is a showdown of youth!" Guy excitedly picked up a wooden sword and took his stance.
In the corner of the courtyard, Kakashi's chopping motion paused almost imperceptibly, but immediately resumed as before, as though he cared nothing about what was happening nearby.
Senju Chen also picked up a small wooden sword and held it casually.
"Here I come, Chen!"
Might Guy shouted, drove off the ground, and charged straight at him like a cannonball, bringing a wave of heat with him. His wooden sword swept in broad strokes, brimming with fierce power.
Senju Chen did not meet him head-on. His body was small and his strength weak; a direct clash would only invite humiliation.
His feet moved in strange, short steps. With an agility at odds with his age, his body drifted like an erratic falling leaf amid Guy's storm of attacks, always narrowly slipping clear.
This was the battlefield footwork Hatake Sakumo had developed through countless occasions of being surrounded and attacked.
The longer Guy fought, the more startled he became. He discovered that no matter how much he sped up, his blade always fell just a fraction short of touching his opponent. Senju Chen was like a slippery loach, always able to anticipate the path of his attacks.
"Amazing, Chen! Again!" Guy's blood was thoroughly fired up, and his offensive grew even fiercer.
Just then, Guy feinted and abruptly ducked, sweeping his wooden sword upward at a tricky angle toward Senju Chen's lower body.
The move came unexpectedly.
Senju Chen's mind had not even had time to react.
But his body moved.
It was an instinct honed through countless trials, long since ingrained in his bones.
Faced with this sudden strike, Senju Chen did not retreat. Instead, he took a slight half-step forward. The movement made Guy's pupils contract sharply.
Then Senju Chen turned his wrist. The wooden sword in his hand neither blocked nor chopped, but lightly "sliced" downward along an inconceivable trajectory.
The movement was small, even somewhat effortless.
Yet that single motion cut with absolute precision into the point on Guy's wrist from which he exerted force.
Guy felt his wrist go numb as a deft force traveled through it. The wooden sword he had gripped tightly flew uncontrollably from his hand and clattered to the ground.
And the tip of Senju Chen's little wooden sword had already stopped soundlessly before Guy's throat.
One move to subdue his opponent.
Clean, decisive, and possessed of an elegance that made the heart tremble.
The entire courtyard fell into deathly silence.
The wind stopped.
Might Guy froze in his attacking posture, fine beads of cold sweat seeping from his forehead. He stared at the wooden sword before his throat, feeling the faint, cold killing intent emanating from it, his mind utterly blank.
Clatter-
Another sharp sound rang out.
It was Kakashi.
At some point, he had stopped training and turned around, staring fixedly in their direction. The wooden sword in his hand slipped from his limp fingers and fell to the ground.
His numb eyes were now contracting violently, with tumultuous waves surging within them. Shock, bewilderment, pain, and a trace of... longing.
That move just now.
That half-step forward, that angle of the turning wrist, that lethal trajectory slicing toward the enemy's wrist...
He knew them all too well!
It was one of the essential techniques of Hatake Style Kenjutsu that his father, Hatake Sakumo, had demonstrated countless times while teaching him-"Severing Fang." With the smallest movement, it dismantled the enemy's offensive and delivered a lethal strike.
His father had once said that this move was a killing technique he had grasped on the battlefield through countless brushes with death, and that its essence was the hardest part to master.
Yet now, a five-year-old child had reproduced this move perfectly.
That effortlessness, that precision, that seemingly innate composure... it was even closer to his father's image than the version he himself had imitated countless times.
How is that possible?!
"You..." Kakashi's voice rasped like sandpaper, every word seeming to squeeze its way out of his throat. "How do you know... my father's kenjutsu?"