____________
[— Manga Scene —]
Naruto remained behind Kakashi, anger and fear battling across his face. He couldn't understand how his teacher could remain so calm while Sasuke stood before someone Naruto had watched reduce two men to blood only minutes earlier. He raised his voice again, refusing to simply stand there and watch while Gaara remained hidden inside that sphere of sand.
"I'm telling you! This isn't the time to be chatting!!"
Kakashi didn't turn toward him directly. His eye remained fixed on the battlefield, as though he were waiting for something he already knew was coming.
"Just be quiet… and watch him."
Sakura, Lee, and even Naruto himself froze for a moment before Kakashi finally glanced toward his student.
"You'll be surprised."
On the opposite wall, Sasuke began to move. He ran straight up its vertical surface until he had put a great distance between himself and the ground, then stopped there, anchoring his feet with chakra. Below him, the sphere of sand remained motionless, with Gaara still hidden inside.
But Baki wasn't at ease.
"No… Gaara, that fool…"
Sweat appeared on his face as he stared toward the sphere.
"We don't know when they're going to give the signal!"
Up in the stands, Kankurō and Temari moved away from their positions. The match was no longer their only concern; if Gaara had lost control of himself, there wasn't much they could do anymore.
"Forget the plan… Is he going to go on a rampage?! Damn it, Gaara…"
High on the wall, Sasuke lowered his body. He planted one hand against the surface while the fingers of his other hand began forming seals.
Gai's eye widened.
Then his gaze immediately shifted toward Kakashi.
Chakra began gathering in Sasuke's hand.
It wasn't a small amount.
An enormous concentration of chakra poured into a single point, until blue-white sparks began jumping around his palm and a sharp sound spread throughout the arena.
Chirp… chirp… chirp…
As though hundreds of birds had suddenly begun screaming at the same time.
Kakashi smiled behind his mask.
"The reason I took Sasuke under my wing…"
He paused for a moment.
"…is because he's very similar to me."
Gai began explaining what he was seeing. A technique designed for assassination, relying on an explosive straight-line charge and an immense amount of chakra concentrated into the dominant hand until it became a devastating piercing force.
And that strange sound…
It had given the technique its name.
Chidori — One Thousand Birds.
Sasuke launched himself forward.
His body became a black streak tearing across the arena, lightning chakra screaming in his hand. The sand automatically rose to protect Gaara, but Sasuke's speed pierced through it before it could stop him.
Then his hand reached the sphere.
Chidori!
[— End Scene —]
Young Kakashi didn't move at first.
His eyes remained fixed on the page filled with lightning, while the cries of birds erupted from the technique Sasuke was using. For several moments, he seemed to forget that his father was sitting beside him, or even that there were other readers inside the Art Store.
Because the man who had taught Sasuke that technique…
Was him.
Or rather, his older counterpart.
'An assassination technique… relying on speed, then concentrating chakra into one hand.'
He read Gai's explanation again. It wasn't simply a matter of releasing Lightning Release toward an opponent. The user turned his entire body into a means of delivering one decisive strike. The distance Sasuke had created between himself and Gaara hadn't been a retreat from the fight.
It was part of the technique.
Sakumo wasn't only watching the manga. He observed his son's face for a while, noticing how Kakashi's expression shifted each time he reread the explanation.
"What do you think?"
Kakashi didn't answer immediately.
He looked at the lightning surrounding Sasuke's hand.
"Dangerous."
A faint smile appeared on Sakumo's face.
"That's the first thing you thought of?"
"Its speed is too high. Once the charge begins, changing direction wouldn't be easy, and stopping the attack midway would be even harder. And if the user misses…"
Kakashi stopped.
He didn't need to finish.
Sakumo understood.
But Kakashi couldn't ignore the other part. His counterpart hadn't kept this technique to himself; he had looked at Sasuke, seen something in him, and decided to teach it to him.
Because he's very similar to me.
Kakashi's eyes lingered on those words longer than they had on the lightning itself.
'Similar to me… how?'
…
On the other side of Konoha's Art Store, Minato was reading the scene with a different kind of calm. At first, he followed the way Sasuke climbed the wall, the distance he chose, and then the position of his body before beginning his charge.
But when the lightning appeared, his eyes changed.
"So that's why he needed the distance."
The wall wasn't merely high ground, nor was Sasuke trying to escape the sand. He needed a long path that would allow him to build speed before reaching Gaara.
Minato returned to the page where Kakashi appeared.
The reason I took Sasuke under my wing… is because he's very similar to me.
He remained silent for a moment.
The Kakashi he knew was still young, but he already possessed that tendency to analyze everything as though the smallest mistake were a personal insult. Yet his future counterpart had become a teacher who looked at an Uchiha boy and saw something of himself.
'That's why he trained him personally for an entire month.'
But what interested Minato most wasn't the similarity.
It was the choice.
Kakashi knew about Gaara's defense and had seen what happened when Lee fought him, then spent an entire month with Sasuke. The result wasn't teaching Sasuke how to endure the sand.
It was teaching him how to pierce it.
A faint smile appeared on Minato's face.
"Future Kakashi doesn't seem to like complicated solutions very much, does he?"
Sakumo's voice reached him from nearby.
"I'm afraid he likes them more than it seems."
…
Hiruzen, however, didn't allow the brilliance of the technique to distract him from what had come before it.
He read Baki's words again.
We don't know when they're going to give the signal.
Then his eyes moved toward Kankurō and Temari as they withdrew.
Forget the plan…
His eyes narrowed.
The previous chapter had given them only a single word, one that could have been interpreted in dozens of different ways. Now Uzumaki Rubiro had given them a second piece.
There was a signal.
And Baki wasn't the only one who knew about it.
'So this doesn't concern Gaara alone.'
Beside him, Danzō had reached the same conclusion.
"The team knows."
Hiruzen didn't look at him.
"At least Baki, Kankurō, and Temari."
"And there's a signal they're waiting for."
Danzō closed his eye for a moment, as though arranging the information in his mind.
"A plan, a specific timing, a signal… and a Sunagakure team inside Konoha."
This time Hiruzen turned toward him.
"Don't."
Danzō raised an eyebrow slightly.
"I haven't said anything yet."
"But I know you."
Hiruzen didn't want an accusation built from incomplete fragments of a distant future. Even so, he couldn't ignore the fact that a Konoha jōnin had already died at Baki's hands earlier in the manga to prevent him from revealing what he had discovered.
And now that knowledge was beginning to take shape.
Not a complete shape.
But it was no longer just a single word.
…
In Sunagakure, the silence was heavier.
The Third Kazekage didn't need to return to the previous chapter this time. The new words were clear before him.
We don't know when they're going to give the signal.
His eyes remained on them for a long time.
"A signal."
Chiyo, sitting nearby, didn't comment immediately. Ebizo flipped back a page, then reread Baki's thoughts and Kankurō's words.
"Then our previous conclusion was incomplete."
The Third Kazekage looked at him.
"How?"
"We thought the problem was that Gaara used the technique at the wrong time."
Ebizo pointed toward the page.
"But perhaps the greater problem is that he started moving before the signal they were waiting for arrived."
Chiyo remained silent for a moment.
Then she said:
"That would mean someone else decides when the plan begins."
No one answered.
It wasn't a confirmed fact, but it was the simplest possibility the pages had offered so far, and that alone was enough to make the atmosphere around them grow heavier.
The Third Kazekage looked at Baki.
Then Kankurō and Temari.
Then Gaara, hidden inside the sand.
'What did Sunagakure do in that future…?'
For the first time, he wasn't asking about Gaara.
He was asking about his village.
…
Rasa sat a short distance away, having completely forgotten for a few moments about the strange resemblance between himself and Gaara. Even the sphere of sand was no longer the center of his attention.
He was looking at Baki.
We don't know when they're going to give the signal.
"Who are 'they'?"
The question escaped him without meaning to.
No one answered.
Rasa read the sentence again.
Baki hadn't said: when the signal comes.
He was talking about a party that would give it.
Then Rasa read Kankurō's words.
Forget the plan… Is he going to go on a rampage?
Gaara wasn't merely a fighter who had lost his temper in the middle of a match.
He was part of something waiting for a specific moment.
And that something was beginning to unravel because Gaara was no longer waiting.
Rasa pressed his thumb against the edge of the page.
'And where does Gaara's role in all of this end?'
He didn't know.
But for the first time since that red-haired boy had appeared, the thing that disturbed him most wasn't the violence Gaara carried within him.
It was the possibility that someone in Sunagakure's future had decided to make that violence part of a plan.
…
"Chidori…"
Sakumo said the name this time.
Young Kakashi returned his attention to the page, where Sasuke crouched over his hand as lightning gathered around it.
The sound alone was strange.
One Thousand Birds.
It wasn't a name that sounded like a typical assassination technique, yet it perfectly described what anyone standing before it would hear.
Kakashi read Gai's explanation again.
Concentrating an immense amount of chakra into the hand.
Charging at tremendous speed.
One strike.
'Close range.'
He began breaking it down in his mind without even realizing it.
'If it's that fast… then the user needs to keep track of the opponent during the charge. He needs to choose the exact moment. And any counterattack—'
"Kakashi."
He raised his head.
Sakumo was smiling.
"You're trying to learn it from the manga."
Kakashi froze for a second.
Then he looked back down at the page.
"I'm only analyzing it."
Sakumo chuckled quietly.
"Of course."
Kakashi ignored him, though the tips of his ears reddened slightly.
…
Elsewhere, Danzō wasn't interested in the technique's name.
He was interested in what it represented.
"Kakashi taught an Uchiha one of his own assassination techniques."
His tone didn't change.
Hiruzen answered:
"He taught his student a technique he needed."
"His student is an Uchiha."
"That doesn't change the sentence."
Silence settled between them for a moment.
Danzō returned his attention to the image of Sasuke charging toward the Absolute Defense.
"At least Kakashi's counterpart understands that possessing a powerful technique is meaningless if it dies with you."
Hiruzen didn't like the way he phrased it, but he couldn't disagree with the meaning itself.
Techniques were passed down.
And a teacher left something of himself behind in his student.
Hiruzen looked toward young Kakashi sitting with Sakumo elsewhere in the store, then returned to the page where Sasuke was using his counterpart's technique.
'It seems you'll leave behind more than you expect, Kakashi.'
…
In Sunagakure, the Third Kazekage didn't pay much attention to the Chidori until Sasuke moved.
Only then did his expression change.
There was no more time to analyze the plan.
Sasuke charged.
The sand moved to intercept him.
But it couldn't keep up.
Chiyo leaned forward for the first time since the chapter began.
"Fast."
Ebizo spoke next.
"Not just that."
Sasuke wasn't trying to bypass the defense.
He was piercing straight through it.
Sand gathered before his hand, layer after layer, while the cries of the Thousand Birds continued screaming from the pages.
The Third Kazekage watched the point of impact without blinking.
In the previous chapters, Lee had shown them one way of dealing with Gaara's defense: be faster than the sand.
Sasuke…
Had taken that idea one step further.
Be faster than it.
Then possess enough power to pierce through whatever amount of sand managed to gather in front of you.
"Kakashi didn't train him to fight Gaara."
Chiyo suddenly said.
Ebizo looked toward her.
She corrected herself after a moment.
"Or at least, we have no proof of that."
Then she returned her gaze to the page.
"But he definitely trained him while thinking about the kind of defense he would be facing."
The Third Kazekage didn't disagree.
The result was right in front of them.
…
As for Rasa, he forgot about Baki, the plan, and the signal for just a moment.
His eyes were fixed on Sasuke's hand.
Only a short while ago, the boy had struck the sphere with his fist and come away with bleeding fingers without leaving much of a mark. Now he had returned to that same defense, but the hand that had failed only pages earlier was surrounded by lightning chakra that made the sand crack around it.
'So that first strike really was a test.'
Sasuke had learned what he couldn't do.
And now he had revealed what he had been hiding.
For a reason Rasa didn't understand, his eyes shifted from Sasuke to the sphere where Gaara remained hidden.
This time, he didn't ask himself whether Sasuke could break through the defense.
He had already seen the answer.
The question that remained was simpler.
'What will happen to Gaara when that hand reaches him?'
…
Back in Konoha, Minato had stopped smiling.
Not out of fear.
Out of concentration.
He watched Sasuke charge, watched the sand rise, and then saw the Chidori drive into it with sheer force.
A fast technique.
Direct.
Lethal.
And most importantly…
Kakashi had created it.
His eyes slowly shifted toward the boy sitting beside Sakumo.
Young Kakashi was still staring at the page, analyzing every detail, perhaps unaware that Minato was watching him.
A faint smile returned to Minato's face.
'So one day, you'll create a technique of your own.'
Then he looked toward Sasuke.
And that wasn't the only surprise.
Kakashi wouldn't merely create it.
He would choose someone else to inherit it from him.
…
Inside the two Art Stores, in Konoha and Sunagakure, the voices gradually faded as everyone reached the final page.
The word plan was no longer the only thing occupying everyone's thoughts.
And the sphere of sand no longer seemed as absolute as it had only a few pages earlier.
There was a signal Sunagakure was waiting for.
There was something Gaara was supposed to do.
And there was a technique Sasuke had brought with him after an entire month of training with Kakashi.
A technique born from lightning and speed, its sound resembling the cries of a thousand birds.
Chidori.
And the moment Sasuke's hand pierced into the sand, only one question filled the Art Stores.
Would the Absolute Defense stop him here…
Or had Sasuke already broken through it?
____________
Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
____________
Chapter 247: Has It Really Begun?
Chapter 248: Because the Third Hokage Will Die Here!
Chapter 249: Who Is Orochimaru?
Chapter 250: Enemy of Konoha!
____________
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Announcement:
After a hiatus of more than five months, I've decided to return to Creating Manga of One Piece with Book II, published as a new book! Thank you to everyone who's been waiting for this series to return. I'll share the link when the second book launches. It's time to set sail again! 🏴☠️
01/11/2026⏳