Kakashi pushed off to retreat, panting slightly as he regained his footing.
Though sharp technique could compensate for his lack of height and reach, physical limitations remained an inescapable reality.
A five-year-old body simply had hard limits when it came to stamina and power.
*Clang!*
A crisp metallic ring echoed through the clearing.
Kakashi drew the short sword from his back, its blade gleaming with a cold, lethal sheen.
“Getting serious, are we?”
Aoba raised an eyebrow.
With a flick of his wrist, a kunai slipped into his palm.
The introduction of steel raised the intensity of the clash in an instant.
The Hatake clan’s swordsmanship was clean and deadly—stripped of all pointless flourishes, born purely to kill.
Aoba’s expression remained placid.
Faint blue light flickered in his eyes as the chip calculated incoming trajectories, allowing his kunai to effortlessly parry Kakashi’s slashing blade.
Sparks scattered across the dim forest shadows.
*How is this possible?!*
Kakashi’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief.
His swordsmanship was being read down to the millimeter!
“Looks like I take the edge in armed combat.”
Moving like a specter, Aoba closed the distance.
The instant his kunai deflected the short blade, he abruptly let go of his weapon.
His hands shot forward like lightning, seizing Kakashi’s sword wrist and other hand in one fluid motion.
With an explosion of strength, Aoba locked Kakashi’s arms in an iron grip.
Then, he did something Kakashi never could have anticipated.
“Lend me your hands!”
Using Kakashi’s captured hands, Aoba forced the boy’s own fingers to weave hand seals!
“What?!”
Kakashi’s pupils shrank.
*Snake—Ram—Monkey—Boar—Horse—Tiger!*
Kakashi struggled to break free in panic, but Aoba’s physical strength far exceeded his expectations.
His fingers felt puppeted by an overwhelming force, completing the seals entirely against his will.
*This is—*
[Fire Release・Great Fireball Technique!]
Aoba’s chest swelled as chakra gathered in his throat.
A massive sphere of orange-red flame erupted from his mouth—at point-blank range, it was virtually impossible to dodge.
Blistering heat washed over Kakashi’s face.
In the nick of time, he twisted his body with all his might and slammed both palms into the ground.
[Earth Release・Mud Wall!]
A thick rampart of earth tore upward from the dirt, shielding him from the raging fire.
Though it lacked his signature bulldog carvings of the future, the wall was exceptionally sturdy—more than enough to block a C-rank ninjutsu.
*Boom!*
The fireball detonated against the stone barrier, billowing thick clouds of ash and smoke.
Using the Mud Wall as cover, Kakashi slipped away into the haze.
An instant later, several identical figures burst from behind the wall, converging on Aoba from multiple angles.
Clones.
Watching the swarm of Kakashis charging his way, the corner of Aoba’s mouth twitched upward.
“Perfect timing.
I’ve been wanting to test out a new trick anyway.”
His hands flashed through a sequence of seals.
[Body Flicker Technique!]
Before the words had even faded, Aoba’s form blurred into a haze.
In the next breath, several “Aobas” manifested across the clearing at once, charging out to meet Kakashi’s clones head-on.
Kakashi realized something was wrong almost immediately.
The moment his clones made contact with Aoba’s “clones,” they were effortlessly shattered, bursting into puffs of white smoke.
Yet when Kakashi’s short sword slashed through one of the Aobas, the steel passed straight through without the slightest resistance, as if cutting through empty air.
A chill crept up Kakashi’s spine.
The “afterimage” he had just sliced didn’t pop like an ordinary clone.
Instead, it solidified for a fraction of a second, and an open palm came crashing down onto his wrist.
*Smack!*
A jolt of sharp pain tore through his arm, sending the short blade flying from his grip.
*How can this be?!*
Kakashi was horrified.
*It was an illusion—how did it strike with real physical force?!*
Before he could process the shock, the remaining Aobas collided with his other shadow clones.
*Thud!
Thud!
Thud!*
A flurry of dull impacts echoed through the trees as Kakashi’s shadow clones were pummeled straight into clouds of white smoke.
Every single one of those seemingly hollow afterimages had turned solid at the exact moment of impact!
This was Aoba’s [Phantom Body Flicker Technique], created by pairing high-frequency Body Flicker movement and visual afterimages with subtle genjutsu.
At this point in time, against a Kakashi who had yet to awaken the Sharingan, it was practically an attack from a higher dimension.
Amid the chaos, a sharp pain struck Kakashi’s back.
The world spun violently around him, and a split second later, he was slammed hard against the trunk of a tree.
Cold steel pressed flat against his neck.
All the phantom images vanished into thin air, leaving only Aoba himself pinning Kakashi to the tree with one hand, the edge of his kunai resting directly against the boy’s carotid artery.
The match was decided.
A deathly quiet fell over the woods, broken only by the chirping of insects and the slightly ragged breaths of the two boys.
Kakashi’s eyes remained wide, staring in stunned silence at the sunglasses-wearing, deadpan Aoba Yamashiro before him.
The sheer feeling of powerlessness was even more suffocating than when he had fallen under genjutsu in that alley.
Taijutsu, ninjutsu, tactics—he had been completely and utterly dismantled on every single front!
“You win.”
After a long pause, Kakashi lowered his eyes, his voice dry and strained.
Aoba withdrew the kunai, casually twirled it around his finger, and slid it back into his holster before releasing his hold on Kakashi.
“Come on, we’re classmates, not the same age.”
Aoba brushed the dust off Kakashi’s shoulder, slipping back into his usual lazy cadence.
“I started training before you did, I’m older than you, and my height, strength, and chakra reserves are all way higher.
It’d be weirder if I didn’t win.”
“By your logic, I can’t beat Lord White Fang or Lord Hokage either.
Should I be moping around about that too?”
“…”
Kakashi blinked in surprise.
He bent down to retrieve his short sword from the ground, sliding it silently back into its scabbard.
“Thanks.
But a loss is still a loss.”
When he looked up again, the defeat in his eyes had cleared, replaced by a steely resolve.
“Next time, I’ll take the win.”
“Sure, sure.
Next time for sure.”
Aoba glanced up toward the canopy.
“Ah, it’s almost dark.
Time to head home and make dinner.
You should head back too, or your family will start worrying.”
Kakashi gave Aoba a long, searching look.
Then, with a few swift leaps, he vanished into the depths of the forest.
*Actual combat really is the best test.
No matter how much the chip analyzes and simulates, it’s all theoretical in the end.*
Aoba began his review.
The chip projected playback footage of the battle onto his retinas, overlaying real-time telemetry.
Today’s bout had exposed quite a few shortcomings.
He relied too heavily on the chip and placed too much blind faith in its raw data.
Not that the chip’s data was wrong—the baseline parameters were completely accurate.
The issue was people.
Humans were complicated creatures, and numbers were never set in stone.
People grew mid-fight.
Split-second instincts and raw combat willpower were volatile factors that could swing the tide of battle at any second.
Perhaps because this was his first time going all out, Aoba had felt a bit of an adrenaline rush, pushing all his stats higher than usual.
Most importantly, his mental state had stayed rock steady, which was what allowed him to consistently keep Kakashi on the back foot with effortless composure.
Kakashi’s raw stats weren’t actually that far behind his own.
Under normal circumstances, the boy was more than capable of fighting him to a draw.
But Kakashi’s emotional swings and wavering focus during the battle had handed Aoba the exact openings needed to suppress him.
*Looks like I’ll need to get some proper exercise like this more often.*
*The question is, who do I spar with?*
A vivid green figure reflexively flashed through his mind, and Aoba vigorously shook his head to banish the thought.
He exhaled softly and stretched his arms toward the sky.
His gaze drifted casually toward a dense cluster of nearby bushes.
A faint, knowing smile touched his lips, and with a soft flicker, he vanished from the clearing.
Not long after the two boys had departed…
A rather adorable kid with wavy hair, noticeably younger than Kakashi, stepped slowly out from the shadow of a tree trunk.
“Looks like I got spotted.”
The kid scratched his head.
As he raised his arm, the fan crest embroidered on the back of his shirt came into view.
“Then again, against someone that strong, it’s only natural.”
Though his face was still round with childhood innocence, his dark eyes sparkled with a sharp maturity far beyond his years.
“Afterimages…
Can the Body Flicker really be used like that?”
…