After Kakashi left the Third Hokage's office, the old man slowly put away the crystal ball and pulled open the drawer in front of him.
Inside was a thick stack of documents. The front files carried the Anbu insignia, but buried in the back were papers marked with the seal of Root.
The Third puffed silently on his pipe, his expression clouded, eyes narrowing as if weighing something heavy.
Meanwhile—
Yuichi had been restless and irritable all night.
He couldn't come up with any excuse to skip today's mission.
But when the daily choice appeared, the system itself actually gave him an option not to take the mission.
"This is a team. Can you just skip out if you don't want to go?"
Of course not. He had no choice but to accept and complete today's task.
[Congratulations, Host has obtained: Water Style – Water Fang Bullet]
Control the water flow into twin columns, compressed into a spiraling rotation to increase lethality. Can be launched from any angle.
"If only I had Wood Style: Clone…" Yuichi muttered.
But his Wood Style proficiency still hadn't reached the intermediate level. He didn't know when the system would grant him access to it.
So he made up his mind.
Tonight, he would sneak out of Konoha and grind his Wood Style ninjutsu until he had the clone.
Doing nothing but menial missions all day left him no time to grow stronger.
Yuichi's brooding expression was so dark that Jōnin Kazuya and Futawa Jidou didn't dare to speak to him the entire morning.
By noon, Yuichi was ready to push through lunch and prepare for the afternoon mission—
But Kazuya unexpectedly declared today's work was already finished.
A half-day off.
Yuichi's face softened slightly.
When the team disbanded, Futawa and Jidou invited him to eat lunch with them.
Yuichi waved them off politely.
"Next time. Definitely next time."
Then, instead of heading for food, he walked straight out of Konoha.
Hunger wasn't an issue. He had a Wood Style physique—he could endure it.
On the outskirts of the village, Kakashi leaned lazily against a tree, his ever-present book in hand. When he noticed Yuichi slipping into the forest, he quietly put it away.
"…Skipping lunch again? This kid…"
With a sigh, Kakashi followed at a distance.
For a shinobi of his caliber, tailing Yuichi was trivial. The boy couldn't sense him at all.
But after a while, even Kakashi started yawning.
"So slow… Even if you want to train, why leave the village just for that? Isn't this a waste of time?"
Still, he kept following.
After ten minutes, Yuichi looked around cautiously and whispered,
"This should be far enough."
Hidden behind a tree, Kakashi raised an eyebrow.
Far enough? Did he really come all this way just to train in a gloomy forest? At least pick a better spot, kid…
But his internal grumbling froze when Yuichi suddenly formed a single hand seal—
And vanished.
Kakashi's eye widened.
"Body Flicker Technique?!"
That was jōnin-level ninjutsu.
What made it worse was how casually Yuichi had done it—with a single hand sign, no hesitation, as though he'd mastered it.
"…Tch, so he's got skill with Body Flicker. Still, it's not that big a—"
Before Kakashi could finish the thought, Yuichi reappeared on a branch in the distance. Then vanished again.
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh!
The sound of air being torn apart echoed rapidly as Yuichi darted through the trees, ghostlike.
In the blink of an eye—he was gone.
The wind blew past, rustling Kakashi's silver hair as his masked mouth twitched.
"…You've gotta be kidding me. Spamming Body Flicker like it's… running."
Sure, Kakashi himself could use Body Flicker multiple times, but not like that—not as a constant sprint. His chakra wouldn't last.
For a genin to run like that? Impossible.
And yet Yuichi had just vanished into the woods.
"…If I report to the Third that I got dumped by a genin…"
Kakashi shuddered. "That'd be beyond humiliating."
With a helpless sigh, he formed a seal.
"Summoning Technique!"
Poof!
From the smoke appeared a small ninja hound wearing a Konoha forehead protector.
"Pakkun, we're tracking."
"Kakashi…" the dog gave him a dry look. "Don't tell me you're having trouble with a kid."
"…Just find him."
Pakkun sniffed the ground, then suddenly frowned.
"This isn't good. His trail… it doesn't look like he stopped."
"…What do you mean?"
Half an hour later, Kakashi and Pakkun reached the Valley of the End.
Kakashi's stomach dropped.
If Yuichi had stopped using Body Flicker, Kakashi would have caught up long ago.
But he hadn't. He'd run all the way here.
From outside Konoha… in half an hour?
The thought alone was absurd. No genin had that kind of chakra. No one.
Before Kakashi could sort it out, the roar of crashing water thundered ahead.
BOOM!
Shoving through the bushes, Kakashi's lone eye widened at the sight before him.
"…What the hell…"