Chapter 9: One Month
On the morning of October 17, Kakashi's new Jonin flak jackets had finally been delivered.
The previous one had been far too loose, so she could not wear it. Because of that, she had someone make two new sets.
Today was the first day of Team 7 officially taking missions after being formed, so she had to dress a little more properly.
After Team 7 gathered in the mission hall, Hatake Kakashi casually glanced over the available requests and picked one to gather medicinal herbs in the forest behind the village.
Faced with such a simple mission, Uzumaki Naruto was obviously dissatisfied.
Although Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura said nothing, they also had their own opinions about it.
Amid Naruto's complaints, the group quickly arrived at the back mountain.
"This forest is huge. How long are we supposed to search?"
Looking at the vast forest before him, Uzumaki Naruto started grumbling again.
"Well, that's something you three need to figure out."
Kakashi spread her hands, indicating that for a D-rank mission like this, she was only responsible for leading the team. Actually carrying out the mission depended on the three of them.
Before Naruto and the others could start complaining again, Kakashi suddenly changed the subject.
"It's nine in the morning right now. If you can finish the mission before two in the afternoon, then for the rest of the day I can teach you how to train."
"Eh?!"
The complaints Naruto had been about to blurt out were forcibly swallowed back down.
When Sasuke heard that, his eyes lit up as well. Hadn't he graduated from the Academy and become a Genin precisely because he wanted to grow stronger?
If becoming a Genin only meant doing boring and simple missions like this every day, then who knew how long it would take before he could get his revenge.
"Then that's settled. Begin!"
After saying that, Kakashi quickly left the area. Not long after, she found a high place where she could keep an eye on Naruto and the others at all times.
Then she began her own training.
This time, Kakashi planned to work on derivative Lightning Blade techniques.
For her, the creator of Lightning Blade, the various derivative techniques of Chidori Current were not difficult.
Of course, Lightning Release: Kirin was still difficult, but Kakashi had no intention of researching or practicing that technique just yet.
After all, that move caused too much commotion and was not suitable for training right now.
Meanwhile, because of Kakashi's promise, Naruto and the others were all overflowing with motivation, scrambling over mountains and valleys to gather the target herbs as fast as they could.
In the end, they managed to finish gathering the required amount by around eleven thirty in the morning.
"We finally finished!"
Uzumaki Naruto threw the herb basket aside and collapsed straight onto the ground from exhaustion.
Sasuke and Sakura were not doing much better. They were both exhausted as well. What should have been a whole day's mission had been forced into just two and a half hours by the three of them.
But Naruto had barely been lying there for two seconds before he sprang back up in one motion.
Putting his hands around his mouth like a megaphone, he shouted, "Kakashi-sensei! We finished the mission!"
Not long after he shouted, Kakashi arrived.
"She's here, she's here!"
Seeing Kakashi jump down from a tree, Naruto got extremely excited.
"Are you going to teach us some really amazing Ninjutsu?"
Although Sasuke and Sakura did not speak, the anticipation in their eyes was obvious.
"Well, before you can run, you first have to learn how to stand and walk."
Kakashi shook her head lightly, then continued, "What I'm going to teach you now is how to control your chakra precisely."
"Huh?"
Uzumaki Naruto froze.
He had thought they were going to learn some especially powerful Ninjutsu.
"Now I'll demonstrate it once. When you can walk all the way to the top of a tree, then I'll teach you Ninjutsu. Ah, no, I mean, then we'll move on to the next stage of training."
As Kakashi said this, she walked toward a large tree, and then a scene that stunned Naruto and the others unfolded before them.
Kakashi was actually walking straight up the trunk vertically.
After teaching them how to use chakra for tree-climbing training, Kakashi could not help sighing inwardly that she would finally be able to train in peace over the next few days.
But clearly, she had thought wrong.
Sakura completed the tree-climbing training on the very first day.
With no other option, after completing another D-rank mission on the second day, Kakashi began teaching Sakura water-walking training.
When Naruto and Sasuke saw that Sakura had already moved on to the next stage of training so quickly, neither of them could stay calm anymore.
Both of them trained like their lives depended on it.
Early on the third morning, Naruto and Sasuke both declared that they had completed tree-climbing training and were ready to move on to water-walking training.
So on that day, Kakashi accepted a mission to clean the river, specifically to pick up trash from the water.
After teaching Naruto and Sasuke the principle behind water-walking and demonstrating it once, Kakashi left.
During this period, Kakashi planned to train her Sharingan. The power of the Mangekyō Sharingan was still very unfamiliar to this body.
After all, Kakashi had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan back in her youth, but had never used it afterward.
Of course, that was also because Kakashi had never known that the Mangekyō Sharingan existed.
Only later, after suffering greatly in a clash with Itachi under Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan, had she come to understand that the Mangekyō Sharingan even existed.
"Next I'll have to face three strong enemies in a row: Zabuza, Orochimaru, and Uchiha Itachi. The latter two are even Kage-level fighters. If I can't use the power of the Mangekyō Sharingan, it'll be hard to stand against them."
Kakashi felt an intense sense of urgency.
Although the Super Electromagnetic Rasengan Cannon was extremely powerful, it consumed too much chakra, and whether it could even hit was another issue, since the technique had a noticeable setup time.
The Mangekyō Sharingan was different.
Kamui whoever you look at, and they die.
At the very least, she would not get injured fighting Zabuza, would not be too scared to make a move against Orochimaru, and would not get instantly crushed the first time she faced Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan.
By then, the situation might even be reversed, because Itachi would not know that she possessed the Mangekyō Sharingan.
Kakashi thought to herself that when the time came, if she used the Mangekyō Sharingan before Itachi did and unexpectedly hit him with a Kamui, would he even be able to endure it?
"Hahaha..."
The more Kakashi thought about it, the more she laughed. At the same time, she could not help raising her right hand to cover her right eye and dramatically shouting, "Amaterasu!"
"Die, Itachi!"
"Hahahaha!"
Kakashi laughed excitedly, not noticing at all that she had shouted the wrong technique name.
A month passed quickly.
During that month, Uzumaki Naruto and the others not only completed tree-climbing and water-walking training, but also improved their Taijutsu.
That was because Kakashi had promised that as long as their Taijutsu met her standards, she would teach them the Konoha Body Flicker Technique.
Kakashi herself had also gained a lot during that month. She had become more proficient with derivative Chidori Current techniques, and she could now activate and use the Mangekyō Sharingan normally.
But the consumption of the Mangekyō Sharingan was still a major weakness.
So she put all the Ninja Jewels she had earned from daily missions during that month, along with the ones obtained from other missions, into her chakra.
At last, she raised her chakra to 1.28 Kakashi.
Although it did not look like much, Kakashi could genuinely feel that the chakra inside her body had increased quite a bit.