Resurfacing, Sakura got a deep breath of air.
"Here."
Kakashi held out a gourd, having bought it using a shadow clone while Sakura was under.
Sakura blew into the gourd, and nothing happened, which was to be expected.
"Again."
Kakashi ordered, and Sakura took a deep breath before sinking to the bottom, Kakashi resetting the stopwatch and starting it again.
By the time she can put a crack in this gourd, the special ones that I had commissioned should be done. Ones that are identical, but made with increasingly stronger materials on the inside. The thought behind this is that Kakashi would switch them out, and by the time she can put a crack in the hardest gourd, the first one would shatter with a casual breath. This keeps her busy and pushes her to improve without letting her know how far along she truly is.
While the stopcloak whirled, Kakashi thought about the improved Mangekyo abilities that he has yet to test.
When he sent one of Isobu's tailed beast balls to the Kamui dimension, Kakashi noticed that the distortion of Kamui appeared to be stronger and faster, but he was more focused on the range of the ability that he had been wanting to test out for a while now.
Pouring the required chakra into his eyes, Kakashi spread out his observation haki throughout the village, feeling the emotions of thousands at a time and picking out one he knew to be a spy, because while he could have long since dealt with all the spies in the Leaf, Kakashi had no desire to kill them all and make Iwa or Kumo wary, but this one spy happened to be unlucky.
Sitting inside a packed restaurant, the spy chatted casually with a server before a distortion of space appeared over his head and decapitated him in front of everyone, causing mass panic and drawing the attention of the Anbu.
Kakashi hummed, not worried about the panic he'd just caused in the village as he contemplated this improved kamui.
'The amount of chakra needed to do that was more than if the spy was in my direct line of sight; I can only imagine the amount of chakra needed to hit someone from the Fire Capital, or even in other countries. So, while it's an amazing tool for assassination, it's not all-powerful.'
Kakashi thought, mentally calculating the chakra cost to snipe someone from another country.
'It'd probably cost me over 45% of my chakra just to snipe someone in the Fire Capital. The closer countries would, of course, cost a little more, but the major countries would likely be impossible to reach if I wasn't willing to pour all my chakra into a Hail Mary attempt…. But then again, I'm not exactly used to the kamui or kotoamatsukami yet, so the chakra needed for each use could be worked on and improved.'
While Kakashi already knew the new power he gained when he gained it, it's a different thing to see, or feel in this case, the difference. As for Kotoamatsukami, the changes to this ability are far less physical, as it wasn't like Kamui in nature. The improvement of Kotoamatsukami went from subtle, undetected mind control to an expanded sensory-neurological command system.
Instead of simply implanting a single thought, Kotoamatsukami evolved to act as a mental script or a set of "if/then" parameters injected directly into the subconscious. For example, if Kakashi were to ever feel he is in danger of outside manipulation, memory alteration, or psychological tampering, then he could use Kotoamatsukami on himself in an absolute command, counteracting it and allowing himself to break them.
The second the self-imposed condition is met, Kotoamatsukami activates internally, forcibly snapping Kakashi out of foreign mind control, memory alteration, or any such thing that the imposed "If/then" covers, restoring Kakashi back to normal and locking him out of future intrusions.
The weakness of this ability would come down to the condition Kakashi himself sets for himself when activated. If one of the "If/then" scenarios doesn't cover a certain area, then he is still susceptible to them, and only then will he be left to solve the situation without the help of his eye.
Kakashi cut the chakra heading toward his eyes, as Sakura came up, stopping the stopwatch and handing her the gourd.
"Sakura, are you using medical ninjutsu to lower your heart rate?"
Kakashi asked, keeping a close watch on her with his observation haki as he thought.
Sakura smiled.
"Yes, sensei. I'm lowering it so I can use chakra to recycle air in my lungs."
'Chakra control is truly this girl's talent; she's not a genius, but a monster.'
Kakashi was familiar with the theory she spoke of; in actuality, it is more advanced than she was letting on. In this state, Sakura was entering a sort of hibernation under the water, which is not something Kakashi ever expected from the girl at this point in her training.
"That's dangerous."
Kakashi sighed, trying to relax his instinct to yank her out of the water.
"I'm pulling you out if I get the impression that you're pushing yourself too hard."
Sakura nodded, a bit happy to have her sensei worry so much about her, but she was confident in her medical knowledge over the subject, and her chakra control was by far her strongest area; with those two working together, she had no doubt about whether she could pull this off long term or not.
"I got this, sensei."
Kakashi held her gaze, searching for any sign of uncertainty that he could use to yank her out of the water, but he saw and felt nothing but confidence in her ability and perhaps trust that Kakashi had her best interests at heart.
"Very well then, I believe in you."
Sakura smiled once more before taking her deep breath and going underwater again, restarting the process of slowly lowering her heartbeat.
- With Sasuke -
"Better."
Kakashi complimented as Sasuke broke out of two layers of genjutsu and even flared his chakra a third time to make sure he wasn't under a third.
"Now I want you to activate your sharingan and look at my handseals. I'm going to hypnotize one of those birds on the tree over there."
Kakashi gestured to two birds relaxing on a branch to their left.
Sasuke nodded, activating his eyes and watching Kakashi form the seals before he observed the reaction of one of the birds.
The bird not hypnotized squaked in confusion as the other spread his wings and began dancing in front of him in the way male birds do to attract females, but there was one problem: both were male, so when the dancing bird got too close, it was smacked over the head and out of the tree by the annoyed bird before it flew off, leaving the bird who fell to wonder where the female bird went and why he wasn't up on the branch.
"That was the demonic illusion jutsu; I used it to be custom-tailored to that bird and made him see what he wanted to see. Genjutsu are always more effective if you can make your target believe it; remember that. Always be wary about things that seem too good to be true. If something feels too easy, then trust that feeling."
Kakashi gestured to a rabbit eating grass in the many bushes around the trees behind Sasuke.
Sasuke began to weave the signs and ensnare the rabbit in a genjutsu.
Kakashi watched with a deadpan as the rabbit went up to a patch of thorn bushes and began humping it.
"You're evil."
Sasuke shrugged.
"You said so yourself that I should make the genjutsu believable to the target."
'But you made him hump a thorn bush out of all things'
Kakashi was speechless, watching the rabbit run off after a thorn dug into it and snapped the weak genjutsu.
"Alright, I want you to watch my hands again. I'm going to show you two more genjutsu before we move on to sharingan genjutsu."
- With Naruto -
Kakashi watched the twenty Naruto clones work on the exercise, smoke par for the course with the majority of them, as only a select few managed small sparks, those close dispersing and being a new batch of twenty taking their place in safe intervals.
"You've truly mastered the method of shadow clones; even the time to dispel them has been perfected to match you. I'd imagine that finding that perfect time caused you many problems."
Kakashi smiled softly, though it was clearly a 'We're going to have a conversation later' smile.
Naruto shivered; this was the first time he had seen that smile without the mask, and it was a bit scarier than when Kakashi wore the face mask.
"I was sure to be very careful; I really only had a couple of headaches."
Kakashi raised a disbelieving eyebrow, and Naruto looked away.
"Ok, maybe it was more like 12-13 headaches, but now I know the best method for the clones."
Kakashi felt like punching him in the face; that same smile was always on Minato's face when he pissed off Kushina.
"You're lucky you have the nine-tails; that's probably the only reason you don't need serious recovery."
Kakashi rubbed his temples.
"Naruto, you're a smart kid, and sometimes I forget that you're so young because of that, but when you do things like this, it makes me want to pull my hair out. The next time you decide to experiment with techniques, you ask Jiraiya or me to supervise, understood?"
Kakashi spoke, leaving no room for argument in his tone, but they were still having that conversation later.
"Yes, sensei."
Naruto nodded quickly, knowing better than to argue with him ever since Kakashi began training him years ago.
"Good. Go get Sasuke; I'm taking you all to eat."
Kakashi said before puffing in a plume of smoke.
- With All -
Having gathered together after Kakashi dried Sakura with a few controlled wind jutsu, the team set out into the village and chose a barbecue place to eat, walking in and seeing some familiar faces.
"I didn't believe it when Asuma said it, but you really got rid of the mask."
Kurenai's voice called after she blinked back her shock.
Kakashi looked over and waved, seeing Kurenai along with Anko and, surprisingly, Shizune.
"Yes, well, it was time for a new look."
Kakashi replied, ignoring the appreciative expression on Anko's face and the blush on Shizune's.
"Gai is going to be heartbroken that he wasn't the first one to see your face.
Anko cackled.
Kakashi shook his head in amusement as he remembered all the times Gai attempted to yank his face mask down during one of their challenges, something that actually contributed to his fast reflexes.
"I'm sure he'll get over it if I accept another one of his challenges."
Kakahsi spoke as he led his team to a booth next to theirs, giving Shizune a nod in greeting when she stopped blushing.
"Good to see you, Shizune."
Kakashi spoke up.
"I have to thank you; Sakura has come a long way, you're quite the teacher."
The three members of Team 7 shared a knowing look as Shizune blushed once more at the straightforward and honest praise.
Anko smirked behind her cup, watching the student of Tsunade blush up a storm.
'Is this her first time seeing an attractive man? How adorable.'
Anko felt like teasing her, but a shake of the head from Kurenai made Anko know that her intentions were quite obvious.
Kurenai also looked at Shizune, but she was more confused.
'Kakashi is attractive, but why is she blushing so hard?'
Kurenai wondered to herself, thinking about the life Shizune lived outside the village and if her former classmate just spent all her time being Lady Tsunade's assistant.
- Chapter End -
I hope you enjoyed the chapter and everything in it. Also, I hope none of you mind the Mangekyo abilities; I plan to make some changes for others as well, and in one case give a character Mangekyo abilities since they were never stated, but that will have to wait until we get there. ;)