“It’s over, Kakashi-sensei.”
Watching the two men disappear into the distance, Gen Hoshino couldn’t help complaining inwardly, but he finally allowed himself to relax.
This battle had been far more dangerous than he had expected.
If Uchiha Itachi hadn’t been a double agent with his own reservations—whether for the sake of his younger brother or for the sake of the village—and if his own Purple Electricity hadn’t been so effective, the battle probably wouldn’t have ended so easily.
“Yeah…”
After confirming that the two men had truly left, Kakashi finally slumped down onto the ground.
Uchiha Itachi’s Mangekyō Sharingan had been far more terrifying than he had imagined.
Even though Kakashi possessed the Sharingan himself, the overwhelming difference between the Mangekyō Sharingan and an ordinary Sharingan was simply unimaginable!
“No wonder he was able to wipe out his entire clan by himself…”
Kakashi still felt a lingering sense of fear.
If Gen Hoshino hadn’t interfered with Itachi at the critical moment, the situation would have been far more dire.
Especially that purple electricity.
It gave Kakashi an inexplicable feeling.
But then…
Kakashi glared at Gen Hoshino, and his expression suddenly darkened.
“Didn’t I tell you to run? You performed well, and you even managed to develop the technique you’d envisioned, but…”
“All right, Kakashi-sensei.”
Gen smiled and interrupted before Kakashi could finish.
“We already fooled them, didn’t we?”
“But did you ever consider what would have happened if they hadn’t been fooled?”
Kakashi shook his head and asked solemnly.
“If things had gone differently, you would have died!”
“But I couldn’t just leave you in danger, Kakashi-sensei.”
Gen Hoshino blinked before slowly speaking with a smile.
“Maybe I didn’t follow orders. But, Kakashi-sensei, don’t you remember? Someone who doesn’t follow the rules is trash, but someone who abandons their comrades is worse than trash.”
“All right, Kakashi-sensei. You should rest for now. I’ll go check on our client.”
With that, Gen quickly stood up.
After giving Kakashi a smile, he headed directly toward the palanquin.
“This kid…”
Kakashi froze in place, staring at Gen’s back with a complicated look in his eyes.
To be honest, when he encountered Hoshigaki Jūzō and Uchiha Itachi this time, he had genuinely felt that everything was about to go wrong.
Because when he looked back at his life, it sometimes seemed as though he had been destined to walk alone.
When he was young, his father committed suicide, leaving him an orphan.
As he grew older, close friends like Obito and Rin successively died in the war.
Later, his own teacher and his wife both died during the Nine-Tails’ attack…
During that period, Kakashi had fallen into darkness.
He wandered through life in a daze, unable to find any direction forward. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
All he could do was numb himself by continuously carrying out missions.
If not for Guy and his other friends in Konoha helping him, he felt that the best outcome he could have hoped for would have been dying on some mission while serving in ANBU.
After leaving ANBU, he eventually became the teacher of his first team of students.
At first, he hadn’t really taken them to heart.
He had even considered giving up after one of his students’ teammates ended up in the hospital.
But he never expected that this student would eventually say the very words Obito had once used to admonish him.
And this time, his student had proven through his actions that he genuinely believed in those words!
“Still, we were lucky this time. Nothing went wrong…”
Kakashi’s eyes became distant.
The person who had said those words to him the previous time had saved his life before dying on the battlefield.
This time, someone else who had said those same words had also saved him.
But everything was different now…
Slowly, clarity returned to Kakashi’s eyes.
He lowered his forehead protector, covering his Sharingan.
The visible eye curved into a crescent-shaped smile.
“Looks like this really is a new beginning…”
[Side Quest Complete: The Light in Kakashi’s Heart]
[Reward Obtained: Information on Divine Weapons]
While Kakashi was lost in his thoughts, new information also appeared in Gen Hoshino’s mind.
Seeing that the quest had been completed, Gen could only marvel.
The impact of Uchiha Obito’s words on Kakashi really was tremendous!
But when he saw the reward, his expression became extremely strange.
“What the heck?”
According to his memories, weren’t so-called divine weapons those ridiculous items used by that pair of lunatics from Kumogakure?
But after carefully examining the information, he realized something was wrong.
“The Sword of Totsuka and Yata Mirror?”
Gen Hoshino frowned.
He remembered that these two were weapons wielded by Uchiha Itachi’s Susanoo.
If his memory served him correctly, Itachi had relied on the Sword of Totsuka to effortlessly seal Orochimaru after Orochimaru used the Eight-Headed Serpent Technique.
Moreover, both of these weapons existed in chakra form.
Gen had always assumed that they were naturally occurring weapons belonging to Susanoo.
But now, it seemed the truth might be different.
“Could it be that these so-called divine weapons already existed as chakra constructs, and Uchiha Itachi simply found them and equipped them onto his Susanoo?”
The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.
After all, when Uchiha Itachi used the Sword of Totsuka and Yata Mirror, both Orochimaru and Black Zetsu immediately recognized them.
Not only that, they even knew something about the abilities of these two divine weapons!
“This means that these two weapons actually existed in the shinobi world long ago, and quite a few legends about them must have been passed down…”
As for why these two divine weapons eventually ended up in Uchiha Itachi’s hands…
“Either this guy was incredibly lucky, or the information was originally kept within the Uchiha clan!”
At this thought, Gen Hoshino’s expression changed.
He didn’t really care about the divine weapons themselves.
But if information about these two weapons was genuinely connected to the Uchiha clan, then he became interested.
That very likely meant these two things had either belonged to their ancestor, Indra, or…
“They might even have been used by the Sage of Six Paths!”
Regardless of which possibility was true, chakra-based weapons would inevitably retain traces of their users’ chakra.
And that chakra might very well help accelerate the development of Gen’s own bloodline!
Especially if the weapons had truly belonged to the Sage of Six Paths.
If he could find something connected to him, Gen might be able to take a considerable shortcut…
“Besides, now that they’ve left, they should go back and report Kakashi’s condition to Uchiha Obito, right?”
Gen Hoshino’s eyes practically lit up.
Even though he didn’t particularly like Uchiha Itachi, he couldn’t help muttering:
“You really are a good guy, Uchiha Itachi…”
…
“Are you all right?”
Elsewhere in the forest, Uchiha Itachi glanced at Hoshigaki Jūzō, whose body was still stiff from the electrical attacks, and asked with a frown.
“It’s not a serious problem, but I’ll need to rest properly for a while.”
Jūzō shook his head and spoke irritably.
“I was careless. I rushed in without having any intelligence on that kid. And that kid’s Lightning Release was truly incredible…”
As a former member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, Hoshigaki Jūzō had certainly been outplayed by Gen Hoshino.
But shinobi would use any means necessary to win.
He had lost, and he accepted that.
What left the deepest impression on him was still that purple lightning.
That technique had truly shocked him.
“It’s only natural for a student of Hatake Kakashi to be this impressive. And Kakashi isn’t simple either. Even after I used a Mangekyō technique, I still couldn’t completely subdue him.”
Uchiha Itachi nodded before closing his eyes.
“We should leave this place first. I need to rest as well. If Konoha’s ANBU catch up with us, it’ll become troublesome.”
In truth, Itachi wasn’t certain whether any ANBU reinforcements were actually coming.
But as a spy, he had insisted that they were.
“Mm. Let’s go.”
Hoshigaki Jūzō nodded as well.
He moved his numb body around slightly before speaking.
“What a hassle. That kid actually figured out our identities. The mission failed. We’ll report it to the others later…”
“After all, we ran into the Copy Ninja, Hatake Kakashi, and a genuine prodigy…”