Is Kakashi really that resistant to pressure?
Sosuke glanced at Kakashi, whose expression remained unchanged.
The drop of this trait was enough to show that Kakashi was actually sweating profusely on the inside.
But thinking about it carefully, it was normal.
Generally, the more talented a person is, the more pride they have when they are about to be caught up with.
In the original story, Kakashi was unrivaled, an absolute genius, and the loneliness that stemmed from that.
But the one who would teach Kakashi about love was Sosuke!
“I’m afraid you’ll be able to surpass me next time,” Kakashi sighed.
Before he enrolled, he was a well-known genius.
But after meeting Sosuke, he realized that the title of genius he had enjoyed for years was about to change hands.
This made Kakashi secretly resolve to work even harder than usual.
“Not at all,” Sosuke shook his head modestly.
“I believe you must have put in a lot of effort,” Kakashi said.
He had already seen the effort and sweat Sosuke had put in; without them, it would be impossible to make such progress in such a short time.
“Indeed,” Sosuke nodded.
Kakashi only needed to think about how to learn, but Sosuke not only had to think about how to learn but also how to trigger traits.
Applying formulas and solving problems is just fast!
Evening.
Hiruzen Sarutobi’s house.
Hiruzen Sarutobi stood by the window, pipe in hand, his gaze falling on Asuma Sarutobi in his own courtyard.
Asuma had taken off his flashy jacket and was wearing only a vest, his forehead covered in sweat, his fists pounding against a wooden post over and over again.
It wasn’t as if Hiruzen Sarutobi hadn’t seen this scene before.
Asuma, this child, had been like this since he was little.
Every so often, not knowing what had stimulated him, he would suddenly ignite a sense of fighting spirit and train desperately for a few days.
Then that momentum, like a Fire Release without enough Chakra, would go out with a ‘poof,’ and he would return to that slacker self.
But this time was different.
Hiruzen Sarutobi had calculated that since the end of the last monthly exam, Asuma Sarutobi had been training every day after school.
He had even stuffed his most precious bad magazines under the bed.
At first, Hiruzen Sarutobi thought the child’s three-minute enthusiasm had just extended to five minutes and didn’t pay much attention.
But as the days passed, not only did Asuma Sarutobi not slack off, he actually increased his own training volume.
This surprised Hiruzen Sarutobi a little.
He certainly knew the reason.
Sosuke.
Whether it was Kakashi, Asuma Sarutobi, or even those arrogant brats from the Uchiha clan, they had all started training more.
Hiruzen Sarutobi took a puff from his pipe.
This was a good thing.
Sosuke’s appearance was like throwing a stone into a pool of stagnant water, making the surrounding water come alive.
Since Tsunade seemed to have something to discuss with him, Hiruzen Sarutobi planned to get in touch with Sosuke as well.
“Go invite Tsunade to the Hokage Building,” Hiruzen Sarutobi instructed toward the door.
“Yes, Hokage-sama,” the Anbu Ninja replied and left.
…
Hiruzen Sarutobi arrived at the Hokage Building.
Tsunade arrived quickly too.
Hiruzen Sarutobi hadn’t even finished half his pipe when the office door was pushed open from the outside.
Tsunade walked in with long strides, sat down in a chair, and got straight to the point.
“Old man, is the sword of the thunder god still in the armory?”
Hiruzen Sarutobi’s hand holding the pipe paused slightly.
The sword of the thunder god.
An experimental Ninja tool left behind by Senju Tobirama that had been gathering dust in the armory for over a decade.
With Tsunade suddenly bringing this up, combined with the intelligence reports submitted by the Anbu over this period, Hiruzen Sarutobi didn’t need to guess to know what was going on.
“It’s Sosuke who wants to use it, right?” Hiruzen Sarutobi said.
Tsunade did not deny it and nodded in admission.
“He wants to practice swordsmanship, and since the Second Grandfather’s sword is just sitting there idle, what’s wrong with letting him use it?”
“That Ninja tool is still too dangerous for students,” Hiruzen Sarutobi slowly exhaled a puff of smoke.
Sosuke’s talent was indeed outstanding, but for a child who had just enrolled not long ago to take the sword of the thunder god, if word got out, people would inevitably say he, Hiruzen Sarutobi, was playing favorites.
He was the Hokage; he had to maintain balance in his actions.
The way of balance exists between all things.
This was a quote Hiruzen Sarutobi had once noted down in a book.
Tsunade’s eyebrow twitched.
“Dangerous?”
She stood up and placed both hands on Hiruzen Sarutobi’s desk.
Then she slammed her fist down.
~Bang!
The desk made a dull thud, a crack extended from where Tsunade’s fist landed, and the stack of documents on the desk shook three times.
“I’ve performed so many meritorious deeds for the Village, and you’re telling me a Ninja tool gathering dust in the warehouse is too dangerous?”
She rarely took the initiative to make demands of the Village.
The last time she made a demand was to request Medical Ninja reform.
Unfortunately, it didn’t succeed in the end.
And now, when it comes to something like this, it’s still not allowed?
Hiruzen Sarutobi looked at the crack on the desk, then at Tsunade’s still-clenched fist, and his eyelid twitched.
What a fiery temper.
Hiruzen Sarutobi didn’t know who Tsunade had inherited that from.
Shodai(1st)-sama had a gentle temper, and Teacher Tobirama had a calm personality.
How did an outlier like Tsunade appear?
However, Hiruzen Sarutobi had a second thought.
Could it be that she inherited the trait of being protective?
After all, Senju Hashirama and Senju Tobirama were both very good to their clansmen, and Tsunade was also very good to the little Sosuke.
After all, the Senju Clan had disbanded, changed their names, and started new lives; Sosuke was the only Senju left by Tsunade’s side.
Hiruzen Sarutobi sighed.
She was, after all, Shodai(1st)-sama’s own granddaughter, his teacher’s niece, and his own student.
“It’s okay to give it to Sosuke,” Hiruzen Sarutobi relented.
“However, I must see his swordsmanship training for myself before I make a decision.”
Upon hearing the first half of the sentence, Tsunade loosened her fist a little.
Upon hearing the second half, she frowned, but after thinking about it, she nodded in agreement.
“Fine, come to my house tomorrow afternoon to watch.”
She turned and walked out, pausing at the door, glancing back at the desk she had cracked, feeling uncharacteristically embarrassed.
“…Put it on my tab.”
The door closed.
Hiruzen Sarutobi sat alone in the office, looking at the crack on the desk, then at the extinguished tobacco in his pipe, and remained silent for a long while.
Do you have the money to pay for it?
Hiruzen Sarutobi really wanted to ask, but after thinking about it, he didn’t say it out loud.
Because he was afraid Tsunade would ask to borrow money from him.
Of his three students, not one was worry-free.
The most talented one, Orochimaru, spent all day soaking in the lab, not knowing what kind of shady things he was researching; recently, he had also been getting closer to Danzo Shimura, and the reports submitted by the Anbu made him frown just reading them.
Jiraiya was even worse; he didn’t know what kind of madness had taken him, abandoning perfectly good missions to wander the world, searching everywhere for an elusive “child of prophecy”.
It was over forty years into the Konoha era.
He, Hiruzen Sarutobi, had almost lost half his life serving as Hokage, and Jiraiya was still messing around with superstition.
Hiruzen Sarutobi shook his head, stopped thinking about these frustrating matters, picked up his pipe, refilled it with a pinch of tobacco, and relit it.
Sosuke was still the most worry-free.
Although he had half Uchiha, his realization of the will of fire was higher than that of many Konoha Ninja; coupled with his talent and willingness to work hard, who wouldn’t like such a child?