Training Ground Fourteen, Konohagakure.
Rin Nohara, Obito Uchiha, and Mori Yasuko were playing a game of kick-the-can hide-and-seek.
It was a simple but popular game.
The person who was it had to touch either of the other two players to win.
Meanwhile, the other two could claim victory by kicking over the can.
It was a contest between pursuit and escape, defense and destruction.
Obito had originally assumed that, with the game-breaking Kakashi Hatake sitting this one out, victory would come easily.
What a beautiful dream.
Too bad reality was so cruel.
He had already lost three rounds in a row.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop Mori Yasuko from kicking over the can.
Speed, reflexes, footwork—this seemingly unremarkable girl from his class outclassed him in every category.
She’s basically another Kakashi, a final boss in this stupid game!
Obito thought bitterly.
And to make matters worse, she’s not even as pretty as Rin!
“Obito, what are you thinking about?” Mori Yasuko suddenly leaned closer and asked in a low voice.
“Mori Yasuko isn’t as pretty as Rin…”
“Huh?
No, wait!
Why did I say that out loud?!”
Obito snapped out of his daze and stared warily at Yasuko, who was smiling sweetly at him.
For a moment, he’d apparently lost himself in thought and spoken his innermost thoughts aloud without realizing it.
Clang!
Yasuko kicked the metal can, sending it flying a long way across the training ground.
“Obito, you lost again!” Rin said with a laugh.
Obito and Yasuko burst out laughing along with her.
For a moment, the entire training ground was filled with cheerful laughter.
“Ahhh!
I lost again!”
Happiness belonged to them.
It certainly didn’t belong to Kakashi.
He had never imagined that Iori Yakumo, the boy he’d identified as a swordsmanship prodigy just a few hours earlier, would have such terrible learning ability.
“Remember, your footwork, breathing, and techniques must work together without disrupting one another.
Let the blade follow your heart instead of mechanically following a rigid pattern.”
“Your footwork is off.
Start again…”
“Your breathing is off.
Start again…”
“Wrong!
Your transitions aren’t smooth enough!”
After Yakumo’s fifth failed attempt, Kakashi could only rub his forehead helplessly.
Behind his black face covering, his expression was undoubtedly one of deep frustration.
Perhaps this is part of the process of cultivating patience and character.
Just yesterday, Kakashi had told his father that a classmate had been secretly watching him practice swordsmanship.
He hadn’t expected his father to be more concerned about the classmate’s character than the possibility of someone learning their swordsmanship without permission.
Kakashi had explained Yakumo’s recent circumstances to his father, and that had earned him a new assignment.
“An inheritance should never be restricted by prejudice or a closed mind.
The most important thing to consider when passing it on is the recipient’s character.”
Those were Sakumo Hatake’s exact words.
The White Fang of Konoha certainly had a broad-minded outlook.
Teaching someone else swordsmanship so I can test my own understanding and seek new breakthroughs…
That was the assignment Father gave me.
I never expected it to be this difficult.
When I first learned it, Father only demonstrated the techniques once.
So why can’t Yakumo learn them?
Kakashi stared at the distant forest, his heart heavy with frustration.
He almost wished a black bear would suddenly emerge from the trees so he could have a good fight with it.
“Kakashi, can you tell me what I’m doing wrong?”
Yakumo’s voice brought Kakashi’s wandering thoughts back to the present.
Not far in front of him, the boy he’d once labeled a prodigy was attempting to piece together the Hatake swordsmanship techniques through a series of hopelessly disorganized movements.
“Your breathing is off!
Exhale through two strikes, then inhale through the next two!”
At once, Yakumo followed Kakashi’s instructions and adjusted the rhythm of his breathing.
After dozens of repetitions, Yakumo’s physical stamina finally reached its limit.
Kakashi’s patience had reached its limit as well.
“That’s enough for today.
We’ll continue tomorrow.”
Kakashi could tell that his classmate had reached the limits of his endurance, so he called an end to the session.
“If I rest for half an hour, I’ll recover enough to keep going for another three hours,” Yakumo replied.
The sun had only just disappeared below the horizon.
There was still plenty of time.
“All right.
I’ll demonstrate a few more times.
Watch carefully.”
His student might have been a little slow to learn, but his diligence was extraordinary.
It reminded Kakashi of something his father had taught him when he was younger.
“Never underestimate people who make progress through several times the effort of others.
Even if they improve by only a little each day, their futures can still be brilliant.”
Kakashi drew his short blade and methodically demonstrated the characteristics of the Hatake swordsmanship’s techniques and footwork.
To make things easier for Yakumo to follow, he deliberately slowed his movements considerably.
Before long, the sky had grown completely dark.
That brought the day’s training to an end.
Yakumo had initially planned to invite his friends to dinner, but when he discovered that all the shops along the road had already closed, he had no choice but to abandon the idea.
The group said their goodbyes and headed home separately.
“I’m surprised you managed to stick with it.”
The sight of Yakumo swinging his blade beneath the moon for hours on end had genuinely surprised Mori Yasuko.
The determination on the boy’s face was difficult to reconcile with the timid, cowardly image she’d once had of him.
“Maybe it’s because I like it…” Yakumo replied.
“You like it…?”
“People are always willing to pursue the things they love, aren’t they?”
Yakumo gazed up at the moon.
He had already decided to return home and continue practicing basic swordsmanship.
After all, he had only two days left to complete his mission.
Yasuko fell silent at his answer.
People were willing to pursue the things they loved.
And that didn’t just apply to things—it applied to people, too.
“Do you like practicing swordsmanship?”
“I like completing missions,” Yakumo answered honestly.
“By missions, do you mean the assignments you take after becoming a shinobi?” Yasuko continued.
The fact that Yakumo was willing to talk with her was a good sign.
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
…
Saturday evening, at the familiar training ground.
On one side, cheerful laughter filled the air as the others enjoyed their game.
On the other, Kakashi stood with a furrowed brow, concentrating on Yakumo’s training.
That evening, Kakashi had proposed a new training method.
Instead of focusing on the techniques themselves, Yakumo would first concentrate on coordinating his footwork with his breathing.
Only after the two became synchronized would he incorporate the sword techniques.
Yakumo’s progress was now unmistakable.
He could even tell what mistake he’d made from the slightest change in Kakashi’s expression.
Two hours later, he had finally mastered the coordination between his breathing and footwork.
All that remained was to combine them with the sword techniques and enter the ranks of those who had mastered the basics of Hatake swordsmanship.
Slash.
Footwork.
Breathing.
Thrust.
Footwork.
Breathing.
Yakumo practiced the Hatake swordsmanship techniques at an extremely slow pace, but every movement was correct.
The thirteenth technique—correct.
The twentieth technique—correct.
The twenty-first technique—correct.
The twenty-fourth technique—correct.
Perfect.
At an exceedingly slow pace, Yakumo successfully completed the entire sequence, coordinating every sword technique with the corresponding footwork and breathing.
“Congratulations!
From now on, you just need to repeat the exercises countless times until the movements become instinctive.
Eventually, you’ll be able to use them freely in battle without having to think about them,” Kakashi said at once.
No outsider could possibly understand how much effort he’d put into teaching Yakumo over the past two days.
“I owe you a huge favor,” Yakumo said solemnly.
Kakashi shook his head.
“The Sharingan can perfectly copy movements and imitate the flow of chakra.
The Byakugan can also see through every secret of the Hatake swordsmanship.
In other words, the methods used to train in Hatake swordsmanship aren’t exactly secrets among Konoha’s higher-ups.”
“It wasn’t Hatake swordsmanship that made the White Fang famous.
Rather, it was the White Fang who made Hatake swordsmanship into what people call a secret art.
In fact, Obito studied it for a while, too.
He just found it too exhausting and gave up…”
This was the first time Yakumo had heard Kakashi speak at such length.
And the reason Kakashi was telling him all this was simple: he didn’t want Yakumo to regard the lessons as a debt he had to repay.