The difference in decades of experience was acute, and I had beaten my first eS-rang opponent purely by surprise and going all-in from the start, contrary to the local tradition of swinging.
If Kakuzu had been a little more prepared, I would have had to flee the battlefield, no matter what my uncle thought. I'm afraid to imagine what Hiruzen, who had not yet begun to give up and was still at the peak of his form, would be capable of.
Despite my defeat, technical as it was, because I could heal all my injuries during the fight, we parted very satisfied with each other - it's not easy to find a worthy partner at our level who's willing to train for a fight, and such meetings at Hatake's personal training ground became a regular occurrence, making little Kakashi, brought by his father to gain experience, as well as Tsumi and Anko, sometimes brought by me, stand there with their mouths open. It only added motivation to the little ones to give Kami a give Kami.
Of course, I would have brought some of the female students to watch, but that would have been too brazen, and after the chunin exams, they didn't get out of the missions, suddenly becoming very popular with their colleagues.
There was one young Uchiha in particular who had performed at the exam and made Minato sweat a lot. I even had to have a serious talk with him about decorum and sending a shadow clone of the girls as insurance, but he was a decent guy, with brains and didn't let himself go too far, though he kept his eyes on Asani.
But it's all just a trifle, but I still accepted one ambiguous proposal.
- I'm glad your answer was positive, Ryo-kun, koo-koo-koo.
***
The snake sannin smiled that frankly intimidating smile of his and carefully tasted his cup of tea. Instead of a bar - the usual meeting place for shinobi and kunoichi - Orochimaru had designated a small, cozy cafe with excellent desserts and equally excellent tea as the meeting place. I guess even mad scientists have their preferences.
- Your fame as a ninjutsu expert who develops his own techniques is well known to everyone in Konoha, Orochimaru-san," I shrugged, taking a sip of my drink and munching on small balls of fruit-filled air dough, "it would be unwise of me to refuse to share my experience with a senior colleague.
- Surprising reasonableness for a shinobi of your age," the Hokage's apprentice nodded, clearly paranoid about the chakra users' protection of their secrets.
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