Chapter 38: Kakashi's Taste of Luxury [Part 1]
"No need to be so tense. Did you all forget? I can fly!"
Sakura casually reminded them.
Whether they could win or not didn't really matter—if things went south, she could just take off into the sky. Who could catch her up there?
"Uh…"
Only now did Kakashi realize the oversight.
In all his missions over the years, he'd rarely encountered shinobi who could fly.
His habitual thinking had trapped him in a dead-end.
"Kakashi-ojisan, hope you don't mind me asking, but—if you were to continuously bombard them with ninjutsu, how long could you keep it up?"
Sakura asked with a glint of curiosity.
She had recently developed a new technique and wanted to test it on Kakashi.
"A few seconds, maybe."
Kakashi didn't even need to think hard.
He wasn't particularly low on chakra, but the Sharingan was a notorious chakra drain.
The eye consumed chakra nonstop, leaving him with very little to actually cast ninjutsu.
At best, he could manage a few jutsu before running dry.
"Hold out your hand."
Kakashi silently extended his right hand.
Sakura pointed her index finger at his wrist, and a green glow formed into several strange runic patterns etched into his skin.
"Kakashi-ojisan, from now on all you need to do is keep using ninjutsu to attack.
As the Copy Ninja, you shouldn't be lacking in techniques, right?"
"The jutsu isn't the issue—it's the chakra."
Kakashi examined the green rune but couldn't make sense of it, so he just spoke honestly.
"No worries. That rune I placed on your wrist is designed to solve exactly that.
After it activates, it'll detect when your chakra runs out and rewind your body to the moment right before you cast the jutsu.
That includes your chakra levels, too.
Unless I manually stop it, you'll loop endlessly in that short segment of time.
In other words—you now have infinite chakra."
This technique was something Sakura had conceived based on Doctor Strange's time loop trick against Dormammu in the Marvel universe.
For a chakra-hungry ninja like Kakashi, it was the perfect solution.
However, she added a word of caution:
"Even though the rune will rewind your body to its original state—even if you're injured—the pain you experience will still linger in your mind.
And repeated time loops will place significant stress on your psyche.
I hope you can endure it."
Sakura's rune only affected Kakashi's physical body—not his soul or consciousness.
So while his body would revert to a pre-cast state, his memories would not.
Each loop would pile those memories on top of one another.
A few loops wouldn't matter—but too many, and the clashing memories could lead to mental breakdown.
"This… is incredible."
Kakashi said it calmly, but inside, he was shocked.
Time reversal—what did that mean?
It meant that if Sakura wished, she could bring someone on the verge of death back to perfect health in an instant.
In theory, even immortality wasn't out of reach.
"Uncle Guy, Shisui—give me your hands too. I'll set one up for each of you!"
Sakura applied the same rune to Might Guy and Shisui, though she secretly tweaked Shisui's version for an extra layer of protection—something to help him in the event of a life-or-death emergency.
"Kill her…"
The lead ANBU operative glanced at Kakashi and the others.
Once he confirmed Sakura as the target, he didn't hesitate—drawing his short sword and charging forward.
To men like them—accustomed to killing—the fact that Sakura was just a child was irrelevant.
As long as they completed Danzo-sama's mission, that was all that mattered.
"Shisui, protect Sakura.
Guy, you're with me. Go all out—no need to hold back!"
Although Root was technically part of Konoha's forces, the moment they came to kill him, Kakashi had no reason to hold back.
Without hesitation, he pushed up his forehead protector, revealing the three-tomoe Sharingan in his left eye.
"Understood.
My youth tells me I must give it everything I've got…"
With a deep breath, Might Guy activated the Eight Gates Technique.
"Eight Gates Release… Third Gate: Gate of Life, Open!"
His forehead veins bulging, Guy launched forward like a missile—delivering a powerful spinning kick straight at one of the Root ninja's face.
"Leaf Hurricane!"
"Lightning Style — Chidori!"
Kakashi, choosing to trust Sakura, immediately unleashed his signature move.
Though his Chidori wasn't yet as refined or versatile as it would be in later years, it was still the technique he wielded best at this point.
There were more than twenty Root operatives deployed to eliminate them.
Danzo, ever paranoid of the Uchiha, had gone all-in on this mission.
If these twenty-plus elite agents were lost here, even Root would suffer a devastating blow.
After all, nurturing elite shinobi was no easy task.
Guy wasn't one for ninjutsu—his combat style was pure taijutsu.
With the Eight Gates open, he didn't bother with evasive tricks outside dodging the occasional jutsu.
His strategy was simple: charge headfirst and crush.
Some of the Root ninja attempted to subdue him with genjutsu, but such efforts were pointless.
Genjutsu usually worked by disrupting a person's chakra flow to induce illusions.
Only a rare few genjutsu could deal direct mental damage.
But for someone like Guy, who had opened the Eight Gates, the chakra within him surged so violently that ordinary illusions collapsed before they could take root.
To dispel genjutsu, a comrade could inject chakra to disrupt the afflicted's flow—but with Guy's chakra already in a chaotic storm, no such intervention was needed.
The genjutsu simply couldn't take hold.
Despite his overwhelming power, Guy remained cautious.
Facing so many Root shinobi, he wasn't about to play around.
He had already pushed himself to the Fifth Gate: Gate of Limit.
His chakra was now erupting from his body in waves, skin flushed and glowing red from the strain.
Meanwhile, Kakashi fought on the other front.
With the Sharingan's predictive abilities, he could effortlessly read and dodge enemy movements while seeing through their tactics.
At close range, he wielded Chidori like a blade, clashing head-on.
But when enemies created distance, he would cancel Chidori, form seals with both hands, and unleash a barrage of ninjutsu—many copied over the years during missions.
It was a side of Kakashi rarely seen.
Gone was the conservative, calculating fighter—replaced by a relentless storm of jutsu, wild and unstoppable.
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