At home, Kimoto Tōichi suddenly opened his eyes and stared toward the balcony.
He said coldly, "Captain, so you already know about that boy."
A shadow materialized on the balcony as if on cue.
"Tōichi, I didn't expect you to leave the Anbu to become a team instructor," the newcomer said calmly.
In the pale moonlight the silhouette resolved — if Naruto and the others had been there, they'd have shouted, "Kakashi-sensei!"
Standing on the balcony was none other than Hatake Kakashi, the instructor of Team Seven.
Tōichi strolled to the balcony railing and leaned against it, watching the moon. He replied with a hint of amusement, "You left as well. Staying in darkness too long — it's nice to come out and feel some sun."
Kakashi looked at him, expression serious. "You seem pleased with that kid."
"He's impressive — a very promising little fellow," Tōichi said. Thinking of the day's events, he even allowed himself a rare smile.
Kakashi's face hardened. "You should know he might not be as simple as you think."
Tōichi cast him a long look, then replied slowly, "I think he's just a kid who dislikes the spotlight. Not so complicated. If he truly had some hidden ambition, he'd never have been so easy to probe."
"Kakashi, you should know that."
Kakashi paused. He had to admit the point: if the boy had sinister intent, he wouldn't have been so easily exposed by Tōichi's test. Still, Kakashi cautioned, "Even so, keep some reserve."
Tōichi chuckled. "Do you not trust my judgment? I used to work in interrogation." He tapped his temple. "From the first look I knew — the kid simply doesn't like attention. Unlike you, who probably would have enjoyed praise at his age."
Kakashi felt awkward. He hadn't always been the bookish, distant man he'd become; there were parts of him that used to feed on recognition. After a moment he said quietly, "Either way, I'll be keeping an eye on the kid. If anything goes wrong, I'll step in."
Kakashi didn't really want to make that promise — Tōichi was the boy's instructor, and what Kakashi implied was direct intervention. Most people would bristle. But Tōichi didn't. He answered calmly, "Do as you wish. If the boy threatens the village, I'll personally stop him. But until then, he's my student. I plan to train him into someone who will protect the village."
During the day Tōichi had been strict with his three genin, but his tone now showed real approval of Arata. He hadn't intended to invest so much in this cohort, but Arata's presence made him want to shape the boy into a protector.
After parting ways with Tōichi, Kakashi went to Arata's home. For someone of his standing, pulling the academy files was trivial. He stood on Arata's balcony — though Arata was already asleep and would never notice the visit.
Even if Arata's current chakra reserves were close to Kakashi's in quantity, quantity alone didn't equal battlefield experience or jutsu mastery. Arata, at best, was near chūnin-level in raw capability — not a match for Kakashi in combat. So Kakashi expected no detection from the sleeping boy.
He watched Arata for a while, then slipped his forehead protector off and revealed his Sharingan. The three tomoe spun in the blood-red iris. In an instant Kakashi traced the chakra flow in Arata's body.
He nearly lost his footing.
"What… how is this possible? This child's chakra—" Kakashi whispered, stunned by what he saw.
The sheer volume of chakra pulsing inside Arata made the veteran ninja reel.
"Is this the chakra reserve of a twelve-year-old?" Kakashi asked himself. Naruto's chakra was far greater — orders of magnitude greater, thanks to Uzumaki lineage and the Nine-Tails — but Naruto was a special case. Without a clan bloodline or tailed-beast reservoir, a normal child should not show such numbers.
Kakashi's face grew darker. "His chakra is already about sixty percent of mine… roughly twenty times Sasuke's." The comparison to Sasuke came naturally: the Uchiha tend to have ample chakra, and Sasuke — as Indra's reincarnation — already possessed more than most of his peers. Even so, Sasuke could already perform Fireball Jutsu, a technique most genin can't power. For Arata's chakra to eclipse Sasuke's by such a margin was nonsensical.
Kakashi felt something else as he focused tighter. "It's not only the amount — the quality is different." He frowned. There was a purity, a density to the chakra he'd never seen in a typical shinobi his age.
What Kakashi didn't yet know — though someone like Jiraiya would have recognized it immediately — was that Arata's chakra was condensed from natural energy. In other words, it was senjutsu-grade chakra. The energy had already coalesced inside him into sage-like chakra, and instead of deforming him, it nourished his body — subtly shifting him toward a sage's physiology.
Kakashi's jaw tightened as he absorbed the implications. The boy's reserves, the chakra's quality — everything about it screamed of something far beyond a normal origin. The Hidden Leaf had a quiet enigma sleeping within its walls.
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