“So, your family name’s Yanagyū?”
“Yes.”
Chiba nodded.
“Though I’m just a commoner.”
“Some commoners today were nobility back in the age of the samurai—it’s only the shinobi era that leveled things out.
I recall seeing the Yanagyū name in some family records once.
Probably a samurai lineage originally.”
“Maybe so.”
There wasn’t a single sword scroll in his household as it stood.
If there had been, he wouldn’t have needed to go begging swordsmanship lessons off Tenten in the first place.
“Mm.
All outdated stuff, really.
Even the Land of Iron trains in chakra now, so whether a family started out as samurai doesn’t mean much anymore.”
Kakashi said this out loud, while his right hand had started to twitch with intent.
The conversation was dull enough that he was tempted to pull out his book right there, but given the book’s less-than-wholesome contents, he managed to hold himself back.
Except—
He could control his mouth.
His hand was another matter.
Chiba wasn’t a shinobi yet, but his instincts had been sharpened well enough regardless, and he caught every bit of it, one thought surfacing in his mind.
Kakashi still has some shred of shame left, apparently.
Later in the story, he’d read this same man calmly flipping through that book in front of Naruto and the others, not caring who saw, as if there wasn’t a single thing left in Konoha he cared enough about to hide.
Maybe he was just wary of how sharp this kid was, worried Chiba might recognize the material for what it was.
Chiba shook his head inwardly and said, “If you want to read, don’t let my opinion stop you.”
“Ah—”
Kakashi’s hand froze mid-motion, a flicker of embarrassment crossing what little of his face was visible.
“It’s nothing.
I haven’t read anything of Lord Jiraiya’s myself, but I’ve heard about it.”
He’d secretly flipped through Kitayama Sho’s copy once.
Honestly, the content hadn’t struck him as especially scandalous—plenty of Jiraiya’s personal opinions were baked into it, and he had a head full of material like that from his old life already.
Kakashi went quiet for several seconds.
This wasn’t a situation he hadn’t found himself in before.
Ordinarily it didn’t bother him in the least.
But in front of Chiba, he couldn’t quite manage his usual composure—after all, they’d both been walking along reading as they went, except the boy had a medical textbook or a ninjutsu journal in hand.
And him?
An adult novel of a rather different genre.
The gap in dignity was significant.
Kakashi cleared his throat.
“No matter.
A book’s just a way to unwind, not a necessity.
Let’s keep talking as we walk.
Lord Third mentioned you to me before, actually—I’ve been curious about you myself for a while now.”
“Lord Third mentioned me to you?”
Chiba blinked, a little surprised.
So Hiruzen had considered putting him under Kakashi at some point, and Kakashi had presumably turned the idea down—otherwise he wouldn’t have extended the ANBU offer just now instead.
“Ha, Lord Third does keep a close eye on talent in the village.”
Sure he does, Chiba thought privately.
Hiruzen’s record on cultivating talent was—well, not nonexistent, exactly, but largely riding on the coattails of the Academy system Tobirama Senju had originally built, with little real substance added on top.
Still.
He respected Hiruzen’s own skill and grounding in ninjutsu, genuinely.
For a shinobi with no special bloodline, no unusual physical gift, to reach the level Hiruzen had reached was remarkable in its own right.
His skills as a teacher, though—those Chiba was less convinced by.
He and Kakashi weren’t especially close.
Even with Hiruzen’s introduction smoothing the way, it wasn’t as if Chiba could reasonably walk up and ask Kakashi to personally coach him in ninjutsu or swordsmanship.
By the same token, Kakashi didn’t know Chiba well either, so this exchange stayed mostly small talk.
The two of them walked and talked.
As they neared the village, Chiba glanced over and finally voiced a question that had lingered with him since his old life.
“Senior Kakashi—the Sharingan you carry, it can’t be closed, can it?”
“Hm?
Why ask about that?”
Kakashi had his book out again by then, mask on as always, so Chiba couldn’t read anything off his face.
Still.
Chiba pressed on anyway.
“Your eye being unable to close means it’s always drawing on your chakra, doesn’t it?
I’ve heard your chakra reserves have never run especially deep—so using a blade would put less strain on you than relying on ninjutsu, wouldn’t it?”
It was a question that had followed him since his old life, watching this story unfold from the outside.
Sakumo’s swordsmanship had never been weak.
Kakashi himself had trained with a blade since childhood, and before he’d developed Chidori, swordsmanship had been one of his primary tools in combat.
The White Fang’s blade might be broken now, but Chiba refused to believe the Hatake clan, or Konoha itself, couldn’t put together even a single chakra-conducting blade for him.
Lightning Blade counted as a kind of sword technique in its own right, sure, but even so—
Don’t you have any real sense of your own chakra limits?
Faced with the question, Kakashi went quiet for a moment, unable to answer right away.
Icha Icha Paradise stopped turning pages.
He walked in silence for half a minute before finally speaking.
“A blade probably isn’t suited to someone like me.
And this eye was left to me by a friend.
I intend to carry it, and keep moving forward, exactly as it is.”
“Of course, the real point is there aren’t many people who could actually run my chakra dry to begin with.”
After a brief flicker of something like gloom, Kakashi went right back to his book.
Chiba had nothing to say to that.
Everyone here carried the same rank of jōnin, in name at least, but even among elite jōnin the gap between individuals could be enormous.
“Whatever the case, this was a pleasant conversation today.”
Kakashi stretched, settling back into his usual languid air.
“The ANBU offer was genuine, for what it’s worth.
But your answer was the right one too—rushing straight to the top isn’t always for the best.
Still, if you ever decide you want in, you can always go through Lord Hokage.”
“Understood!”
“I’ll be off, then.”
Kakashi waved and wandered off toward Ichiraku Ramen, reading as he went.
Chiba picked up a few rice balls along the way and headed for the Academy.
Shikamaru sat on the swing set out front.
Chōji stood nearby, glancing around restlessly.
“What a pain.
We could’ve left ages ago, and instead we sat here waiting on you for half an hour.”
“Sorry about that.
Got caught up talking with a senior and lost track of time.”
Chiba said, holding out the remaining rice balls.
Chōji’s eyes lit up, and without any hesitation at all he took them, offered a quick thanks, and started devouring them at speed.
Shikamaru let out a resigned sigh and pulled two items out of his pocket.
Nara Clan Pharmacological Research.
The other wasn’t a book at all but a bound notebook—judging by the handwriting and the notes inside, it had clearly been copied over from Akimichi clan records.
“These are for you.”
“Please pass along my thanks to Lord Shikaku.”
“Honestly can’t figure you out.
You could be spending all that extra time on ninjutsu and training instead—why bother with this stuff?”
Shikamaru leaned back against the swing’s rope, looking genuinely baffled.
“Working out formulas like this isn’t especially hard for me, and it speeds up training efficiency by a wide margin for everyone.
So why wouldn’t I?
And I’m not the only one who benefits once it’s done.”
Chiba shrugged.
“You haven’t been through what makes people reach for something like this.
That’s fine—you don’t need to understand it yet.
Someday, when you’re facing something with no good options left, you’ll understand exactly why.”
“…”
Shikamaru went still for a moment, then said nothing more, simply hopping off the swing and walking away without a word.
On the way home, he passed Naruto, still out training.
Haven’t been through it, huh.
He glanced at Naruto, then looked back the way Chiba had gone, lost in thought.
“Shikamaru, you’ve been zoning out a lot lately.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Hm?”
“Nothing.
Maybe he and Dad are right about this.
Come on, Chōji, let’s go home and eat.”
Shikamaru said, sounding as unmotivated as ever.