Kakashi had always been fairly satisfied with his own strength. Even Bei Yuan Feng's diary described him as a renowned Leaf technician, one of the strongest under Kage level.
Against regular ninja, he had absolute confidence.
But against someone on the Kage tier?
He had never seriously thought about it before. Shinobi of that caliber rarely appeared unless villages went to war. Otherwise, they stayed far removed from normal people's lives.
But the flip side was simple. If someone of that level personally took action, it usually meant a village-level conflict was about to erupt.
Like that Konoha Crush Plan he couldn't stop thinking about.
With Orochimaru involved, the plan suddenly felt terrifyingly realistic. A Kage-level opponent made anything possible. And judging from the diary, the time for that invasion wasn't far off.
Bei Yuan Feng hadn't given an exact date, but if Kakashi assumed the plan was real, assumed he wasn't under genjutsu, and assumed Bei Yuan Feng wasn't joking…
Then it must be coming within one or two years.
He judged that from Sasuke's age in the video. Twelve or thirteen years old. Clearly no longer an academy student.
If Sasuke was interacting with him directly, and he'd performed the Evil Sealing Method on him, then there was only one explanation.
Sasuke had become his student.
He remembered the Third Hokage asking if he was willing to take on a genin squad. He hadn't refused. Hiruzen had been subtle but clear. He felt Kakashi had stayed in the Anbu too long, his personality drifting too far into the shadows. Putting him in charge of a team was supposed to balance that out.
It hadn't been the first time. But none of his previous students had passed his test. Sasuke, however, seemed to be the exception.
"Orochimaru's target is Sasuke?" Kakashi muttered.
He recognized the thing the future him had sealed.
The cursed seal.
He'd learned about it long ago, back when he was still in the Anbu… and even earlier, during his time in Root. And even now, Anko, Orochimaru's former student, carried one.
For Kakashi, very few things or people still mattered. In the academy's current class, only two students truly caught his attention.
One was Sasuke Uchiha, Obito's last remaining clanmate, the final heir of the prestigious Uchiha clan.
The other was Naruto Uzumaki, the only child of his teacher, the Fourth Hokage.
If Orochimaru had planted a cursed seal on Sasuke and intended to lure him away… it was frighteningly plausible. Sasuke's fixation on revenge was stronger than most adults could even imagine.
And who could blame him? His entire clan had been slaughtered. Anyone would seek vengeance.
Kakashi didn't know Sasuke well, but he knew enough. The kid was the top of his class, praised as a true heir of the Uchiha bloodline.
But academy rankings didn't impress Kakashi much. A "year's top student" was still only the first step into genius-level territory.
Beyond them were genin who graduated early. Beyond them were prodigies who reached chunin at the age others first enrolled.
And beyond those were super-geniuses like Itachi Uchiha… geniuses Kakashi himself acknowledged as existing above him. The only other person he'd ever placed in that category was his own teacher, Minato.
Even if Sasuke trained with everything he had, he couldn't hope to beat Itachi.
Which meant the idea of Sasuke being tempted by Orochimaru… wasn't impossible at all.
But would things really develop that way?
Kakashi didn't know. But he did know one thing.
He had to take this seriously.
Should he report it to the Third Hokage?
Would the Hokage even believe him? How could he explain the diary system? And more importantly… was he even allowed to show it to anyone else?
The thought gave him a headache.
Just who in the world was this Bei Yuan Feng?
Bei Yuan Feng, of course, had no idea Kakashi was scrutinizing him. The next morning he woke early. As squad leader, he headed to the mission hall in the Hokage building to pick up the day's assignment.
Some missions could be self-selected. Others were assigned directly by higher-ups. The stronger a ninja was, the more likely they were to be pushed into high-danger missions. Ordinary ninja typically received low-ranked jobs.
With their squad composition, one chunin and two genin, they usually got C-rank missions. B-rank required an all-chunin team, and A-rank missions required a jonin on the roster.
But today something unusual happened.
The person staffing the mission center… was the Third Hokage himself.
Hiruzen almost never came here in person. Maybe once or twice a month at most.
Bei Yuan Feng felt complicated seeing him. In his previous life, conspiracy theories painted the Third Hokage as some kind of ultimate shadow villain. But that didn't match how Bei Yuan Feng felt about him now. Maybe the old man had flaws, maybe he made mistakes, but he wasn't nearly as dark as people made him out to be.
More likely, Bei Yuan Feng thought, it was Kishimoto being inconsistent. Early Hiruzen was hyped as the strongest Hokage in history, after all.
But this was a real world now. What could be dismissed as author inconsistency in fiction might have entirely different explanations here. He wasn't about to gamble.
"Bei Yuan Feng's squad, correct?" Hiruzen glanced up at him. "I have a C-rank mission here. Take this one."