Meanwhile, Kisame Hoshigaki pressed forward against Sarutobi Asuma, forcing the elite jonin into a fierce exchange. Blow after blow rang out, but for the moment, Kisame still couldn't put him down.
The shark-faced missing-nin grinned, then flashed through a set of hand seals. "Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique!"
Water on the lake exploded upward at his command. Two massive dragons of water twisted across the surface, tearing into each other as they surged forward, and the violent aftershock of the jutsu sent waves crashing in every direction.
At the most critical moment, another Water Dragon Bullet rose to meet it.
Kisame's eyes narrowed at once. "You can use the same jutsu as me?"
His surprise was obvious. For someone to match the scale and timing of his Water Release at the last second was no simple thing.
"What are you doing here?" Asuma asked, clearly startled.
Kakashi Hatake stood there calmly, as if he had only just arrived on a casual stroll instead of stepping into a battlefield between monsters. "I left it to the two of you earlier," he said, "but I still felt uneasy."
At the same time, in the clearing beyond, another Kakashi was already moving.
A kunai flashed in the hand of his shadow clone as it appeared behind Uchiha Itachi like a wisp of smoke solidified into flesh.
"Kakashi Hatake?" Itachi turned, his voice as cold and still as ever.
"What are you doing back in the village, missing-nin?" Kakashi asked.
Off-screen, Sasuke Uchiha straightened instinctively.
The dazzling clash of jonin-level techniques had already left him breathless, but that question struck even deeper. It was exactly what he wanted to know. Why had Itachi Uchiha, a rogue ninja who had betrayed the village and massacred the clan, returned to Konoha?
On-screen, Itachi simply turned fully toward Kakashi and said his name in return.
"Kakashi Hatake."
Those words carried no anger, no mockery, not even surprise. That made it worse.
Kakashi stared directly into Itachi's eyes, tension hidden beneath his usual lazy tone. "Your eyes are still the same as before," he said. "Which makes sense. After all, you're the true inheritor of the Sharingan. We should prepare for the worst."
Beside him, Kisame couldn't help laughing. "No wonder you could counter my jutsu. So besides Itachi, there really is someone else with eyes like those. You must be Kakashi of the Sharingan. Kakashi the Copy Ninja."
Kakashi didn't budge. "I'm the one who should be surprised. I didn't expect the suspicious people I noticed in that teahouse to turn out to be Uchiha Itachi and Kisame Hoshigaki—one of Kirigakure's freaks."
Kisame's grin widened. "You know me?"
"So you really are one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist," Kakashi said, his expression growing graver by the second. "That sword on your back is Samehada."
Even though he had never personally fought one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen before, Kakashi knew their reputation well enough. They were Kirigakure's sharpest blades, a select group made up of its most elite shinobi. Each carried a unique sword with terrifying abilities of its own.
Anyone who could wield one of those blades was at the very least elite jonin class.
But the next line out of Kisame's mouth was what truly froze off-screen Kakashi in place.
"I heard you fought that brat Zabuza," Kisame said. "He's someone I had to discipline myself."
"Me? And Zabuza?"
Even watching from outside the scene, Kakashi fell into thought.
Judging from Sasuke's appearance in the footage, this segment of the future could not be too far away. Half a year, maybe less. In other words, within the next several months, he would cross paths with not one, but two of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.
Any one of them was dangerous enough.
Kakashi had confidence in his own strength, yes. He believed he could win. But that confidence was not arrogance. These were not nobodies, not ordinary jonin he could brush aside. Every member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen was a seasoned killer with real combat power.
Before Kisame could press the fight further, however, Itachi stopped him.
"Kisame. Don't act rashly."
Kisame clicked his tongue. He clearly wanted to argue, but Itachi continued before he could.
"If you really fight him, you probably won't come away unscathed," Itachi said. "And if we drag this out, other shinobi will begin to gather."
Kisame looked dissatisfied. "But—"
"Don't forget why we came," Itachi cut in. "We're not here to suffer losses."
Kakashi's gaze sharpened. "Then I'd like to hear your purpose."
The shadow clone standing off to the side burst apart in a puff of white smoke.
"We're only here to find something," Itachi replied.
Kakashi's voice hardened instantly. "What are you looking for?"
But Itachi did not answer him directly. Instead, in that same flat, unreadable tone, he said, "I'm not the same as Kisame. I don't need much time."
The moment the words left his mouth, his hand moved.
It was so fast it was almost invisible.
He reached out and seized a cluster of shuriken, and in that same fraction of an instant, chakra surged.
Kakashi's body reacted before thought could catch up.
"Ninjutsu—Water Release: Water Formation Wall!"
Water rose around him in an instant, curving into a defensive barrier. At nearly the same moment, the waves at his feet transformed into sharpened spikes and shot toward him with murderous force. They slammed against the water wall and shattered away just short of his body.
Kakashi's pupils tightened.
"What kind of casting speed is that?"
As a prodigy, he had always been proud of the speed of his hand seals. Even among jonin, very few could match him. But no matter how fast he moved, the seals themselves were still there to be seen.
With Itachi, it was different.
The jutsu had been completed in the instant he extended his hand.
If not for the Sharingan letting him catch the motion at all, Kakashi truly felt he might not even have understood how he died.
Watching the scene from outside, Kakashi's expression darkened further.
Just as he suspected, Itachi had become far stronger than he used to be. Much stronger.
And the one most shaken by all of it was Sasuke.
His breath caught in his throat as he stared at the screen. Kakashi's seal speed was already so fast Sasuke could barely follow it, but Itachi's speed was another world entirely. He couldn't tell when the seals had begun, let alone when they had ended.
"Damn it…"
His fists clenched until his nails bit into his palms.
"Is the gap between us really that huge?"
Disbelief, frustration, and hatred churned together inside him. If Itachi had already become this powerful, then how was he supposed to compete with him in the future? How could he possibly take revenge?
For the first time, that question didn't feel like a vow. It felt like a wall.
Would he truly never catch up?
That thought struck harder than any blow. And with it came another, even more bitter one.
Over the past few years, what exactly had he been doing?
He had basked in the empty praise of being first in his class. He had accepted the admiration of his peers, the whispers that called him a genius, the way people looked at him as if that title alone meant something.
But now?
Compared to monsters like Kakashi Hatake and Uchiha Itachi, what had he actually learned in the academy? What had he truly gained?
The difference was suffocating.
Kakashi Hatake was already a famous master, someone he had heard about long before he ever laid eyes on him. Yet even Kakashi—whether in pressure, battle instinct, jutsu power, or the speed of his seals—felt impossibly far above the person Sasuke was now.
And Itachi was beyond even that.
The Uchiha clan had died too early. Sasuke had only just stepped onto the path of a shinobi, and he had never truly witnessed what a top-tier Uchiha looked like in battle. Not until now. Not until this moment.
And what he saw was terrifying.
But it also made one thing painfully clear.
This was not some vague dream of revenge anymore. This was reality.
The enemy he wanted to kill stood at a height so great that even looking up at him felt exhausting.
Sasuke's face darkened.
He suddenly hated the version of himself who had been satisfied with being called number one in the grade. Hated the years he had spent measuring himself against children while men like these were already walking through storms of blood and death.
What had he been doing all this time?
Studying academy basics. Trading blows with classmates. Protecting his pride over titles that meant absolutely nothing in front of true monsters.
The thought was humiliating enough to make his chest ache.
And yet, beneath that humiliation, something darker and fiercer began to burn.
If the gap was that vast, then he would have to close it.
If what he had learned so far was worthless, then he would have to throw himself into something harsher, faster, crueler. Anything. Everything.
Because now he understood at last.
The world he was stepping into was far larger, far bloodier, and far more brutal than the one the academy had shown him.
And if he kept moving at this pace, then forget revenge—he would never even qualify to stand in front of Uchiha Itachi again.