With other ninjutsu added on top, this should be more than enough for the next few years.
Kage Level.
Uchiha Sasuke wrote those two words in his notebook. It was a concept Kaede Kitahara had introduced.
He had never thought in these terms before. Back when he was still a student, the ninja academy taught that each village's Kage was the strongest, followed by the Jonin of the major villages.
But now he understood.
Some people held no Kage title, yet possessed power on par with one. Those individuals were collectively referred to as Kage Level. Their strength far surpassed ordinary Jonin, even elite Jonin.
The first Kage Level expert exposed in the videos was Orochimaru.
Just his presence alone had suppressed Konoha's Number One Technician, the Copy Ninja Hatake Kakashi.
As for breaking into Kage Level territory himself, the only reference Sasuke could use was his future self during the Mangekyo period. Awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan was the threshold.
"Mangekyo… do I really have to pursue the power he talked about? No. There has to be another way."
Sasuke murmured to himself.
Even though his heart was filled with hatred toward his brother, he had not yet been completely swallowed by darkness. He could not bring himself to kill his closest friend just to obtain power.
Especially killing that idiot to take his eyes. He refused to sink that low.
More importantly, he had noticed something else.
In the future, he clearly possessed the Mangekyo Sharingan, yet that dead-last had not died. That meant there had to be another way to awaken it. It did not necessarily require crossing such an inhuman line.
"I'll find a way. I swear it. I will kill him. Father. Mother."
Sasuke steeled his resolve.
At the same time, Hatake Kakashi was deep in thought.
Uchiha Sasuke's talent was beyond question. He was the same kind of genius Kakashi had once been, someone ordinary people simply could not understand.
Sasuke's talent was enough to make Kakashi consider passing on his legacy. At Kakashi's age, in a world where the average lifespan was not long, it was already time to think about choosing a successor.
Yet he hesitated.
The Sasuke shown in the videos carried a clear possibility of defecting.
Kakashi could understand Sasuke's mindset. For the sake of revenge, he was willing to give up everything, even condemning himself to eternal damnation.
But someone like that would become a massive threat to the village in the future.
From the video of Sasuke ambushing Shimura Danzo, Kakashi had already seen enough. The destruction of the Uchiha Clan was likely tied to the village's upper ranks in some way.
Otherwise, Sasuke would not have gone after Danzo after killing Uchiha Itachi.
And his killing intent had been completely undisguised.
But would Sasuke's hatred truly stop at Danzo?
Would it extend to the village leadership, or even spill over into resentment toward the entire village?
After awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan, Sasuke had unleashed a technique called Susanoo. The destructive power of that jutsu, if released inside the village, was deeply unsettling.
Because of that, Kakashi truly hesitated.
"…Sigh. I'll observe a bit longer."
He did not want to give up on Sasuke completely.
At Kaede Kitahara's home, after finishing his complaints and recording everything in his diary, Kaede prepared for today's gacha draw.
Tomorrow, he would be heading to the Land of Waves. Today's hope rested entirely on pulling something useful.
"Start the draw!"
A transparent, spinning roulette appeared before him.
One prize after another flashed past as it rotated rapidly.
Moments later, the pointer stopped on one option.
"Phantom Body Flicker Technique."
Kaede stared at the result. So it was this jutsu.
In terms of raw value, it felt far inferior to the Uchiha bloodline or the basic Uzumaki Clan Sage Body he had obtained earlier. But in actual combat, it was absurdly useful.
This had to be Uchiha Shisui's special Body Flicker Technique.
Relying on it, he had earned the title Shisui of the Body Flicker.
It allowed the Body Flicker Technique to produce afterimages similar to shadow clones, and even when those afterimages were attacked, they did not immediately disappear.
That was borderline ridiculous.
Even shadow clones vanished after taking sufficient damage.
This had to be Shisui's personal secret. Otherwise, other members of the Uchiha Clan would have used it too.
Personal creations like this, later lost to history, were actually quite common in the ninja world.
Kaede quickly chose to fuse it.
In an instant, massive amounts of information flooded his mind. His understanding of the Body Flicker Technique leapt up by an entire tier.
"So that's how it works."
As Kaede absorbed the knowledge, he could not help clicking his tongue in amazement.
He had to admit it. Uchiha Shisui might not have been the sharpest thinker, but his talent in genjutsu was nothing short of legendary.
This was a completely new Body Flicker style born from combining genjutsu with the Body Flicker Technique.
To achieve this, one needed extraordinary genjutsu talent, along with an extremely solid foundation in Body Flicker fundamentals.
For Kaede, understanding the Phantom Body Flicker Technique was like having an entirely new world opened to him.
The Body Flicker Technique was just one of the basic jutsu taught at the ninja academy. It relied on the instant release of large amounts of chakra to achieve rapid movement. Skilled users could further enhance it through other means. Gaara's sand-based movement, Zabuza and Haku's mist-based movement, and so on.
Among all of them, the Phantom Body Flicker Technique stood at the very top.
Normally, reaching Chunin level meant one had already mastered the Body Flicker Technique to a proficient degree. Kaede himself had only reached that level before. He could not even claim true mastery, let alone something approaching this level of perfection.
In other words, Kaede's fundamentals had actually been fairly average.
He had trained hard, relentlessly so. From the very first day he entered the ninja academy, he had pushed himself nonstop just to survive in this brutal world. Otherwise, he would never have ended up as a teammate of someone like Hyuga Keiko, even if she was from a branch family.
A branch family was still a great clan.
Without real ability, that would never have happened.
Most of his classmates from back then were still stuck at the Genin level.
And yet, even so, his ceiling had been clearly defined. He had deeply felt how much talent limited him.
That all changed the day he obtained the diary.
After fusing with a standard Uchiha Clan bloodline, his talent ceiling was visibly broken open. Many things he had once found utterly impossible suddenly became easy.
Whether it was his chakra reserves, his control over chakra, or his proficiency in mastering ninjutsu, everything began to skyrocket.