Feiyu's words caught Kakashi off guard for a heartbeat—but only for a heartbeat.
"Alright. It's a deal."
Kakashi's father, Hatake Sakumo, was the famed White Fang of the Leaf—a name that shook the shinobi world. In the current era, he stood among the absolute strongest in Konohagakure.
Right now was exactly the peak of the White Fang's glory, his reputation echoing across nations. You could say that, aside from the Hokage himself, Hatake Sakumo was the most famous shinobi in the entire village.
So from Kakashi's perspective, someone asking to meet his father was perfectly normal. It didn't strike him as strange at all.
Uchiha Feiyu, however, wasn't hoping to worship the White Fang or ask for guidance out of admiration.
On the contrary, what he'd remembered was the original timeline: around this period, Hatake Sakumo would fail a mission, be hounded by rumors, and ultimately commit suicide.
What Feiyu had set his sights on… was Hatake Sakumo's soul.
Juling Qianjiang, the Soul Marshal from The Outcast's world, was one of the Eight Miraculous Arts. As a technique that forcibly bound and devoured souls, its power all came down to one thing:
How many and how strong the souls you'd collected were.
Unfortunately, the Naruto world didn't have wandering wild souls drifting around. Once a living being died here, if more than ten minutes passed, its soul would quietly fade away and head for the Pure Land.
Because of that, even though Feiyu had stayed in the Hidden Leaf for years and searched as best he could, he'd never once managed to find a human shinobi's soul.
The ninja world was dangerous, sure—but at least for now, Konoha itself was relatively safe. It was nearly impossible for a civilian Academy student to stumble across a fresh shinobi corpse within ten minutes of death.
Feiyu had even tried "fishing" at Konoha Hospital, waiting for patients to die.
But with the village's medical ninjutsu being what it was, anyone who made it to the hospital had a decent chance of being saved. The ones who couldn't be saved usually died before ever getting there.
Places like the Torture and Interrogation Unit, the Intelligence Division, or Konoha Prison might see freshly dead bodies more often, but all of those were heavily guarded cores of the village. A mere Academy student had no way of getting near them.
So up to this point, Uchiha Feiyu had only ever collected animal souls.
Most of those had already been eaten. He refused to cross the line of devouring human souls—for now, at least—but eating animals didn't bother him at all. And animal souls, even if he used them as possessions, didn't offer much in terms of combat power. They just weren't worth using that way.
Still, thanks to the chakra-bearing beasts of the Forest of Death, Feiyu's physical stats and chakra reserves were top-tier among his peers—strong even when compared to other children of the Uchiha clan.
But that advantage only held inside his age bracket.
Once you understood all that, it was easy to see why a soul on the level of the White Fang was unimaginably tempting to him.
Even if a possessed body couldn't fully recreate the soul's original strength, just having someone like Hatake Sakumo ride his body would be enough to give Feiyu combat power on par with—or above—elite jonin.
But that was all for later.
Right now, he had something else to deal with: one very eager Kakashi.
The winter wind howled through the trees as Kakashi casually pulled a short sword from the sheath at his waist. Cold light flashed along the blade.
The famous White Fang Short Sword wasn't in his hands yet—not while Sakumo still lived—but this weapon was still top-rate.
Feiyu, by contrast, only drew two kunai, one for each hand.
Even after joining the Uchiha clan, it wasn't hard to guess how much they were willing to invest in a late-arriving "outsider." His gear was utterly ordinary.
But as his fingers tightened around the kunai grips, a shadowy shape flickered behind him—a black, panther-like spirit rising up over his shoulders.
This was the strongest beast soul he'd collected in the Forest of Death: a jet-black panther known for incredible speed. When Feiyu let it possess him through the Soul Marshal, his reflexes and movement speed jumped by a full fifty percent.
Kakashi couldn't see spirits, but he could feel the sudden spike in Feiyu's presence. His expression sharpened, a hint of excitement in his eyes. Tiny arcs of electricity began to dance faintly along his body.
Stimulating his own cells with Lightning Release chakra to move faster—the signature trick of the White Fang.
Clearly, Kakashi had inherited more than just his father's name.
Feiyu flicked one kunai forward, sending it whistling toward Kakashi. It wasn't some elaborate Uchiha-style throwing pattern, just a pure, clean, viciously fast throw.
Kakashi snapped his short sword up to parry.
Metal rang with a sharp clang. The force behind the kunai left his wrist numb.
Feiyu was already on him, stepping in hard, raising the kunai in his other hand high above his shoulder. Despite being only a short blade, he brought it down like a heavy hammer, all brute force and momentum.
Kakashi clenched his teeth and raised his sword again. Steel met steel with a spray of sparks, and Kakashi was driven back several steps across the snow.
"Heavy… Are you really an Uchiha? Your fighting style feels more like Guy's than your clan's."
"Sorry. I might have the Sharingan, but I didn't grow up getting drilled by the Uchiha. I trust a body tempered a thousand times more than some fancy clan sword-dance."
In truth, Feiyu had long since decided on his own training path. For him, physical foundation was everything. It was the cornerstone of all his future growth.
Jutsu and technique? Those he could patch later—either by learning them himself, or, more efficiently, through the spirits of shinobi he'd devour down the line.
But his own body? That could only be built by himself.
The Soul Ingestion Method strengthened him across the board—not just chakra and mental power, but raw physical strength too. Because of that, Feiyu's current fighting style looked nothing like an Uchiha's. If anything, it resembled the Senju of old: direct, overwhelming, and brutal.
Kakashi gave ground a couple more steps, then his body blurred.
With a puff of smoke, he vanished—Substitution Jutsu.
Feiyu's kunai cut cleanly through the "him" left behind, splitting the wooden log replacement in two. His brows knit for an instant, his stance turning as he snapped a kick backward.
The Kakashi who'd appeared behind him exploded into white smoke as well.
A flash of silver light dropped from above, stabbing down toward Feiyu's shoulder.
"Been waiting for you."
Feiyu chuckled, body slipping back just enough to let the blade miss. As he retreated, his kunai snapped forward like a streak of black, driving straight for Kakashi's chest.
Under the panther spirit's possession, Feiyu didn't just move faster and think quicker—his five senses and intuition sharpened drastically as well. Simple clones and substitutions weren't nearly enough to fool him anymore.
Kakashi, who'd failed to land the ambush and almost gotten skewered in return, barely managed to knock the kunai aside. He hadn't even caught his breath yet when Feiyu was already on him again, fresh kunai in hand, pressing the attack.
Steel sang through the frozen forest.
Kakashi blocked again and again, feet sliding back across trampled snow. Blow after blow he gave ground, until his breathing smoothed out and his mind settled.
With the black panther possessing him, Feiyu's speed already matched Kakashi's own Lightning Release–amped movement. In raw physical strength, he outclassed the nine-year-old genius completely.
But Kakashi, prodigy that he was, had already found Feiyu's one obvious weakness:
His taijutsu and ninja tool usage, while solid at the foundation, weren't anything special in terms of technique.
It made sense.
Feiyu had never received proper high-level instruction. The Academy's curriculum didn't go past the basics, and the Uchiha clan, beyond tossing him a few foundational ninjutsu scrolls, had never seriously trained him.
Kakashi, on the other hand, was the complete opposite.
His eight-year-old body hadn't come close to its physical peak, and even with Lightning Release stimulation, he had clear limits in brute strength. But if you looked at pure kenjutsu skill, the Hatake heir—trained directly by the White Fang—left Feiyu in the dust.
Once he understood that, Kakashi stopped meeting Feiyu's power head-on.
Without another word, he shifted his style completely. His short sword traced flowing arcs of light, sometimes sticking close, sometimes guiding or redirecting, sometimes drawing Feiyu's kunai away. Using subtle "adhere, link, and lead" movements, he bled the force out of each heavy swing.
The moment Kakashi changed modes, Feiyu immediately felt the pressure.
Even with the panther spirit riding him, even with his heightened senses and intuition, he was suddenly the one lagging half a beat, reacting instead of driving the tempo.
Still, the panther's possession gave him an edge.
Thanks to that razor-sharp sense for danger, Kakashi, while clearly holding the advantage, couldn't finish things quickly.
Snow kicked up under their feet. The clash of steel rang through the trees in a constant ding ding dang, each impact sending tiny sparks scattering.
Two figures weaved between the trunks, crossed blades, and then separated in a blur of motion.
Feiyu glanced down at his white clothes, now marred by fresh cuts, and frowned slightly.
Kakashi stood across from him, clothes intact. Only his breathing was a little rough, sweat beading on his forehead.
He'd held the edge in that last stretch, but at the end of the day, he was still an eight-year-old child. His body just didn't have the stamina to match his skill. Over ten minutes of all-out fighting had burned through a big chunk of his reserves.
"Looks like I lost this one," Feiyu said lightly. "You've gotten stronger fast, Kakashi. As expected of the most famous genius in the village right now."
Blood slowly seeped through the cuts in his sleeve and down his arm. Feiyu pulled a roll of bandage from his tool pouch and wrapped it casually around the wound.
The cut wasn't deep. It barely affected his combat ability. But it was still a clear sign of defeat.
Kakashi took a couple deep breaths, steadying himself.
His victory hadn't come easily. If they'd gone on a few more minutes and his stamina gave out, the loser might've been him instead.
Both of them had deliberately avoided using lethal ninjutsu. So while Kakashi's body was tired, his chakra reserves were still in good shape. After a quick breather, he'd more or less recovered.
"You… If you'd just act a little more motivated, the clan and the village would definitely give you more support."
"You're sneaking out here to train every day anyway. Why not show some results and squeeze more resources out of them?"
Feiyu only chuckled at the question and didn't bother answering.
With the Soul Marshal in his hands, he didn't have to worry about running out of techniques to use in the future. If he accepted too many favors from the village or the clan now, it would just mean more obligations later—and a lot less freedom to slack off and fish for benefits when he felt like it.
◇ I'll drop one bonus chapter for every 10 reviews (leave a review/comment!)
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ Read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon: patreon.com/KageNaruto