"That brat… his ability to conceal his presence has improved again. At this level, he's probably better than most of the jōnin in the ANBU."
Even for a seasoned veteran like Kakashi, he couldn't sense Akira's presence at all.
Not even the faintest instinctive trace.
"…Well, whatever. The main focus of this exercise was supposed to be Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura anyway."
Truth be told, Kakashi did want to test Akira a little—to see just how strong the boy had become.
But the current situation clearly wasn't the right place or time.
After a brief moment of reflection, Kakashi shifted his gaze forward.
Naruto was standing boldly in the open field, hands on his hips, glaring at him with a provocative grin.
Kakashi sighed helplessly.
"The way this kid's brain works really is… different from normal people."
"It's the complete opposite of the Fourth Hokage's calm and analytical personality."
The Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, was famous for his brilliant combat intelligence—a master tactician.
Yet Naruto had absolutely no strategy whatsoever and was charging straight in headfirst.
Had he inherited all of Kushina's fiery temperament instead?
Hidden behind a tree, Akira watched Naruto's reckless behavior through the gaps in the leaves and rolled his eyes.
"This guy surviving all the way to the end of the story in such a brutal ninja world… his protagonist plot armor must be absurdly strong."
That was precisely why Akira hadn't wanted to end up on the same team as Naruto.
Being around someone with a natural talent for attracting trouble meant constantly getting dragged into disasters.
Even Sasuke, hiding in the shadows nearby, was mentally cursing Naruto as an absolute idiot.
Sure enough, only a few minutes later, Naruto was knocked flat by one merciless taijutsu strike from Kakashi and lay on the ground groaning.
The moment Naruto was taken down, Sasuke seized the opportunity.
He burst out from hiding like a hunting leopard, his hands forming seals at blinding speed.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
Kakashi's eyes narrowed slightly in surprise.
"At such a young age, he can already use a jutsu of this level? Does he even have enough chakra to sustain it?"
The Great Fireball was a C-rank ninjutsu, extremely difficult for newly graduated genin.
But the answer came quickly.
Sasuke puffed out his cheeks and unleashed a massive torrent of blazing fire directly toward Kakashi.
Flames roared forward, the heat wave surging violently.
Kakashi reacted instantly and vanished from his position.
"BOOM!"
With a thunderous explosion, the two-meter-wide fireball smashed into the ground where Kakashi had just been standing.
Flames raged wildly, scorching the earth black and leaving behind a crater over two meters wide, smoke curling upward.
Despite missing, Sasuke didn't panic.
The moment Kakashi disappeared, he drew a kunai and scanned the surroundings warily.
But the gap in strength was simply too vast.
Before he could react—
a hand suddenly burst from the ground and seized his ankle.
"Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu!"
With a powerful yank, Sasuke was dragged underground.
Only his head remained above the soil, completely immobilized.
Kakashi jumped out from the ground nearby and crouched in front of him, smiling casually.
"Not bad. Being able to use the Great Fireball Jutsu like that at your age is commendable."
"Unfortunately… your movements are still too slow. Too many openings."
After delivering that merciless critique, Kakashi stood up and brushed the dirt off his hands before looking deeper into the forest.
Even buried in the ground, Sasuke clenched his teeth and asked,
"That Akira… you already knew him before this, didn't you?"
Kakashi paused mid-step.
Several seconds passed before he lazily replied,
"…You could say that."
Sasuke's pupils shrank slightly.
"I knew it…"
But Kakashi had no intention of continuing the conversation. He turned toward the bushes where Sakura was hiding.
The next moment, his figure vanished again.
---
Meanwhile, Sakura was crouched inside the bushes, trembling too much to even poke her head out.
What she didn't know was that Kakashi had already slipped silently behind her.
Just as she nervously turned to check on Sasuke—
a giant Kakashi face suddenly filled her vision.
At the same instant, Kakashi's hands flashed through a set of seals too fast to see.
"Genjutsu: Death Mirage Jutsu."
A strange ripple spread through the air.
Sakura instantly fell into overwhelming terror.
Even a low-level genjutsu was fatal for someone with such weak mental resilience.
With a scream and a thud as she collapsed, the three rookies had now all been taken out.
Kakashi finally dropped his casual attitude.
His gaze turned sharp and alert.
Because there was still one troublesome opponent left.
At that very moment, far away inside the Hokage office, the Third Hokage Hiruzen was watching everything through the Telescope Jutsu.
He was extremely curious about the boy who had earned Kakashi's unusual attention.
When Kakashi finished dealing with the other three and prepared to face Akira—
the Hokage was so startled he nearly dropped his pipe.
Kakashi carefully closed the book he always carried—Icha Icha Paradise.
Then he slowly lifted the headband covering his left eye.
Revealing the crimson Sharingan beneath.
"Kakashi is actually using the Sharingan? Is he planning to fight seriously?"
"Against a freshly graduated child, no less?"
But what shocked the Hokage even more came next.
He scanned the entire forest with the Telescope Jutsu—
and couldn't find Akira anywhere.
The screen showed nothing but swaying leaves in the wind.
No sign of the boy.
"This child's concealment skills… they've already reached this level?"
"They're not even inferior to elite ANBU operatives."
"Did Kakashi secretly teach him all this?"
The Hokage recalled Kakashi mentioning that he had taught Akira some ninjutsu.
Now it seemed Kakashi had taught far more than that.
Even the ANBU's most closely guarded tracking and counter-tracking techniques had been passed down.
That only deepened the Hokage's curiosity.
"What kind of talent could make you invest this much effort?"
"Is he even more gifted than Sasuke?"
At this stage, both the Hokage and Kakashi considered Sasuke the most outstanding member of the new generation.
After all, these children had grown up in peacetime.
Achieving such ability without the crucible of war was already rare.
The Hokage increased the chakra flowing into his jutsu, trying to locate the boy.
After searching for a long time, he finally spotted a faint silhouette behind an unremarkable tree.
The concealment was astonishing.
If he were physically present without this bird's-eye view, discovering Akira would have been nearly impossible.
"Akira… it seems you're quite the hidden talent."
"This level of concealment is practically made for assassination."
The instant the Hokage's gaze locked onto him through the Telescope Jutsu—
Akira's sharp perception detected the sense of observation.
It was the gaze of a powerful figure.
On the surface, he remained expressionless, leaning against the tree trunk with his eyes closed.
But internally, alarms blared.
"So the old man is watching."
"I'd better hold back a bit. Can't show too much."
In truth, with Akira's current strength, he didn't really fear the aging Third Hokage.
Whether he could win was another matter—
but escaping would definitely be easy.
Still, Akira preferred his quiet and stable life.
He had absolutely no interest in becoming a hunted rogue ninja and living on the run.
----
Meanwhile, within the exercise itself, Kakashi searched for quite a while before finally arriving beneath the large tree where Akira was hiding.
In truth, it was only because Akira had deliberately leaked a faint trace of his presence that Kakashi managed to locate him.
Standing in the shade of the tree, Kakashi looked up and said with a wry smile,
"Your ability to hide your presence is getting more and more ridiculous. Even I almost couldn't find you."
At this moment, Kakashi had no idea that every move he made was being watched by Hiruzen.
After all, Kakashi wasn't a specialist in sensory techniques.
If he truly wanted to pinpoint someone's location, he could simply summon his ninja hound Pakkun and solve the problem in minutes. But it never crossed his mind that the Third Hokage would be bored enough to spy on a genin training exercise using the Telescope Jutsu.
Standing atop the thick tree trunk, Akira looked down at Kakashi from above, a faint smile on his lips.
"Kakashi-sensei, I already understand the purpose of this little children's game. I think I could just sit here and wait until the test ends. What do you think?"
A few black lines appeared on Kakashi's forehead as he replied irritably,
"The test for those three is indeed over. But now I'm going to conduct a separate evaluation for you."
"The last test was a full year ago. Who knows whether you've been slacking off during that time."
Akira's eyes flickered for a moment, instantly grasping Kakashi's intention. He replied with a smile,
"Kakashi-sensei, I swear I'm nowhere near your level. There's a huge gap between us especially with someone watching from above."
Kakashi froze for a moment, then immediately understood the hint.
The "above" Akira mentioned clearly meant someone observing them from overhead.
He smiled helplessly and lowered his voice.
"We still have to put on a show, don't we? Otherwise how am I supposed to explain things later?"
Akira shrugged casually.
"So are you planning to capture me?"
Kakashi thought for a moment before setting a benchmark.
"That won't be necessary. By now you should at least have the strength of an upper-tier chūnin. I hope you haven't neglected your training this past year."
Akira nodded with understanding, smiling.
"Alright. Since you insist, Kakashi-sensei, I'll do my best to put on a performance."
Before his words had even finished, the tomoe in Kakashi's left eye began spinning rapidly.
The Sharingan instantly entered combat mode.
If they were going to act, they had to act convincingly.
Akira suddenly drew two specially made shuriken from his ninja pouch and flicked his wrist, sending them flying toward Kakashi.
At the same time, his hands blurred as he rapidly formed hand seals.
"Fire Style: Shuriken Flame Ring!"
The two shuriken, already flying at high speed, were instantly engulfed in blazing fire.
Driven by chakra, the shuriken spun even faster, their edges erupting into burning rings of flame—like two miniature flaming wheels.
Kakashi's eyes sharpened, silently praising the jutsu.
Though technically only a C-rank ninjutsu, in Akira's hands its power was astonishing.
"BOOM!"
One flaming shuriken roared toward Kakashi. Just before impact, Kakashi's body transformed into a log.
Substitution Jutsu.
The missed shuriken slammed into the ground and exploded.
Flames scattered everywhere. Within a five-meter radius, the grass instantly turned to ash, and a scorching wave of heat surged outward.
The explosion blasted a three-meter-wide charred crater into the ground.
Meanwhile, the second flaming shuriken curved through the air like it had a mind of its own, chasing after Kakashi, who had already flashed dozens of meters away.
Dozens of meters meant nothing—only a blink of an eye.
Fortunately, Kakashi's experience allowed him to react instantly.
His hands flashed through seals, his chest swelling with chakra.
"Water Style: Water Severing Wave!"
At the exact moment the flaming shuriken reached his face, Kakashi expelled a torrent of water like a crashing waterfall.
Fire and water collided violently, producing a harsh sizzling sound.
The shuriken itself was only palm-sized, but the flames surrounding it made it appear far more terrifying.
Shockingly, when the flames met the rushing water, they didn't immediately extinguish.
Instead, they seemed to flare up in anger.
The flames suddenly surged, the shuriken spinning even faster, generating a small whirlwind of fire.
But Kakashi was still a jōnin with enormous chakra reserves.
As the water torrent intensified, the stubborn flames were finally suppressed.
After several seconds, both the water and the fire dispersed into the air.
The ground where they had clashed was now blasted into a deep crater, the surrounding soil still scorched by intense heat.
---
Watching everything through the Telescope Jutsu, the Third Hokage was stunned.
"This jutsu… he's perfectly attaching Fire Style chakra to the shuriken, then using rotational centrifugal force to increase both cutting power and the spread of flames."
"That requires extremely precise chakra control. Otherwise the shuriken would melt before it even leaves the hand."
"The difficulty and lethality of this jutsu surpass many B-rank Fire Style jutsu. Did he create this himself?"
The Hokage could hardly believe that the seemingly laid-back boy possessed such terrifying talent.
Although "Fire Style: Shuriken Flame Ring" wasn't some earth-shattering S-rank jutsu—
with this alone, Akira could easily kill a chūnin.
In other words, Akira's raw combat ability had already reached the threshold of a Special Jōnin, perhaps even a full jōnin.
It wasn't as dazzling as Kakashi becoming a jōnin at twelve, nor did it compare to creating Chidori.
But in this peaceful era, such talent was incredibly rare.
A long-lost smile of satisfaction appeared on the Hokage's face.
He was exhausted.
Watching Konoha slowly decline filled him with anxiety.
Among the new generation, aside from Sasuke and Naruto, he had struggled to find anyone capable of carrying the village's future.
Konoha was no longer the dominant power that once crushed Kumogakure and Iwagakure.
The lack of high-end combat power weighed heavily on his mind.
But now—
he saw hope in Akira.
This child might possess potential comparable to Kakashi's in his youth.
"A promising seedling worth nurturing carefully. If guided properly, his future achievements may surpass even Sasuke and Naruto."
"And at such a young age, possessing such vast chakra reserves… in that regard he truly resembles the Fourth Hokage."
Just as the Hokage was secretly pleased, the situation on the battlefield suddenly changed.
After unleashing that powerful Fire Style attack, Akira swayed slightly, appearing exhausted as if his chakra had been depleted.
In battles between experts, victory was often decided in a single moment.
Kakashi seized the opening instantly.
His figure flashed forward like a phantom, appearing behind Akira.
A cold hand blade rested gently against Akira's neck.
Akira raised his hands with a wry smile.
"Looks like I still can't do it. Couldn't even last five minutes."
It had to be said—Akira's acting skills were flawless.
And Kakashi, his longtime "partner," naturally performed just as convincingly.
Kakashi withdrew his hand and commented calmly,
"You've improved a lot compared to before. Keep it up."
Their perfectly coordinated performance completely fooled the Third Hokage watching from the Hokage office.
Not the slightest flaw could be seen.
After six years of careful concealment, Akira's disguise had long since become second nature.
Even Kakashi, who spent time with him regularly, couldn't fully grasp Akira's true capabilities—
such as the terrifying depth of his real strength.
---
Soon after, the two of them walked out of the dense forest one after the other.
Sasuke, who had been waiting outside, looked disappointed when he saw Akira appear alongside Kakashi.
"So even you couldn't grab a bell?"
Akira glanced at Sasuke, who was still stuck in the ground like a planted carrot, and burst out laughing.
"Come on. Our opponent is a jōnin—one of the very best in Konoha. Losing is completely normal."
Akira sounded completely relaxed, without the slightest frustration.
After all, he had already sensed that the feeling of being watched had disappeared.
Kakashi walked over and pulled Sasuke out of the ground like pulling a carrot, then casually released Sakura from the genjutsu.
Akira pointed toward the distance where Naruto was still hanging upside down from a tree, swaying in the wind, and joked…"…You might want to get that guy down too."