To be honest, Amane wasn't surprised that the Third chose Kakashi as his examiner.
When people think too simply, all you have to do is run the logic in reverse and their intent shows. Kakashi's story, falling from a pedestal to the dust, mirrored Amane and Sasuke in too many ways. Faced with a crushing blow, Kakashi had chosen early graduation to numb himself.
That was why he called Amane trash. He wasn't insulting him. He didn't want to watch his own tragedy repeat.
It was the same reason he was notoriously harsh with new graduates. He did not want children to watch their comrades drop one by one because of their own weakness.
In that, Kakashi's heart was still stubbornly kind. He simply did not show it. The man was a quiet type. He would rather act than preach.
And Amane understood him. He knew those rough words were a vent for something real.
Kakashi's life was tragic. As a boy, his heroic father was branded a criminal, and the very comrades he saved blamed him. Under unbearable pressure, Konoha's White Fang chose suicide to protest a world he could not accept, leaving Kakashi alone beneath the weight.
Like Amane, Kakashi ran from the stares and graduated early. It gave him nothing. He walked the world alone until Obito and Rin graduated and Minato formed a new team. He lost four or five years in between, and only then, stung by Obito's words, did he grasp why his father abandoned a mission to save his comrades.
Even so, he never understood why a man as strong as his father chose death. There were a thousand ways to clear his name. Suicide was the coward's way. Kakashi would never untangle that knot.
Amane, though, understood. The White Fang's death had never been about a failed mission. The shinobi world was too vast, Konoha too vast, for a single failure to be unique. Without the hands of the village leadership moving the strings, such a storm would never have broken.
BOOM!
The earth split. Heat blew upward in a pillar of flame.
Kakashi sprang to a branch, staring at the crater where he had stood. That punch... really came from the boy?
That scorching heat and raw force smashed stone like eggshell. An Uchiha orphan, was he? What a monster.
"No... wrong!"
His Sharingan stabbed pain through his skull. The scene twisted. He was still standing there. Amane's hand was already at his waist, fingers brushing the bell.
Kakashi bounded back, cold sweat beading his brow. He ripped up his forehead protector and bared Obito's eye. He wasn't Uchiha, so he couldn't close it at will. Those three tomoe chewed through his chakra every moment they spun.
"A shame."
Amane adjusted his glasses, genuinely regretful that a single glance hadn't dropped Kakashi. Years later, Itachi would do that without breaking a sweat.
Yes, Amane had used the Uchiha clan's pride: Sharingan genjutsu. And that ambush had been taught by the clan's true illusion master, Shisui. Since saving him, Amane had peppered Shisui with questions, and because he'd once devoured every genjutsu text in the public archives to prepare for Itachi's Tsukuyomi, his grasp of illusion was razor keen.
Even Shisui said that if Amane chose to pursue genjutsu, surpassing him would be easy, and one day he might unlock an illusion stronger than Kotoamatsukami.
Genjutsu was a hobby. His real strength was still his fists.
Even so, Kakashi's mind raced. If the boy had aimed for his skull instead of the bell...
He had underestimated Uchiha monsters again.
Amane slid in close. The strike mirrored the illusion. His fist hit the ground. Flame geysered.
This... was he still trapped?
Kakashi frowned. In the illusion, the boy's punch had shattered the earth, and his gut had rejected it as unreal. Only Gai or Lady Tsunade could do that. How could a six-year-old have that kind of power?
"Sorry, Kakashi-san. This one is real."
BOOM!
The ground heaved. Kakashi's eyes widened. Not an illusion. The kid really could smash the earth and wield that strange fire.
The fist streaked for Kakashi's face. With a POOF, the man exploded into smoke.
A razor gust knifed in from behind. A blast of arctic dread hit Amane in a very private place.
"Shadow Clone, huh? The real you attacks from cover."
"Very like you, Kakashi-san."
"But this backdoor can't fit your Thousand Years of Death."
Amane snapped into a spinning roundhouse, heel scything toward Kakashi's extended fingers.
The bell test became a bare-knuckle duel that rattled the trees.
…
"He passed."
"In the future, Hokage-sama, I'd like someone else to handle this kind of thing. Excuse me."
An hour later in the Hokage's office, Kakashi stood beside Amane, both of them in tatters. Half of Kakashi's silver hair had been scorched off. The seat of his pants was a blackened ruin. In the end, Amane had returned the favor, delivering Thousand Years of Death with a flaming twist courtesy of his Oniyaki. Kakashi had raised Raikiri in fury, but there was no point. The bell was already gone.
He had passed. From today, Amane would be a shinobi. First, though, he had to clear the final step: the soul-deep questioning of the Third Hokage.
Amane lifted his head. Their eyes met.
The air in the office tightened.