[Zabuza's second fight was even better than the first.
That was the first time Kakashi used Raikiri—flashy as hell.
But Minato really wasn't wrong. Raikiri is a high-speed charge technique.
Kakashi's reaction speed just isn't on Minato's level.
If the enemy can react and counter, Raikiri becomes dangerous to the user.
That's why this technique is actually best suited for the Uchiha.
Kakashi has a Sharingan, sure—but it's not innate.
In the end, the one who truly pushed Raikiri—Chidori—to its peak
was Uchiha Sasuke.
The kind that can hit a meteor.
With Naruto gone, maybe only Sasuke could save the village.]
Kaede Kitahara's little rant made the three of them go rigid. The amount of information crammed into those lines was unbelievable.
To Kitahara, it was just him venting about the plot.
But to the three actual shinobi reading it, those stray comments were enough to map out entire chains of cause and effect.
Not all of those chains were certainties. Some were deductions. Some were guesses. And some were conclusions that scared them too much to say out loud.
Kakashi frowned. "A second fight… so my guess was right after all."
He reached up and tugged at his forehead protector, a habitual motion whenever his thoughts started spiraling.
In the video, Momochi Zabuza had been whisked away by a masked boy who claimed to be part of Kirigakure's hunter-nin unit. Kakashi had immediately sensed something off. The kid didn't look like a hunter-nin at all.
He'd already suspected there would be follow-up events. Now it was confirmed.
If that first clash in the video counted as round one, then there had to be a round two.
And in that second fight, he would use Raikiri.
Kakashi might be known as the man who copied over a thousand jutsu, but most of those were only usable—not mastered. The Sharingan wasn't so miraculous that it could copy another ninja's proficiency along with the technique.
Even Uchiha Sasuke, who copied Rock Lee's taijutsu, needed a full month of hard training before he could properly use it. He didn't instantly acquire Lee's mastery.
Then again, Lee had trained with Guy for at least a year, and even before that he'd spent all of ninja school busting his ass. For Sasuke to copy all that in just a month… no wonder even someone as mentally tough as Lee nearly broke down over it.
And that wasn't all—Sasuke mastered Chidori in that same month.
Some people were just built to crush your spirit.
Raikiri was Kakashi's signature technique and his ultimate trump card. It wasn't something meant to be flashy. It was a weapon designed for a single, decisive moment — and using it recklessly was the fastest way for Kakashi to get himself killed. With his chakra reserves, he couldn't use it many times. It was meant for taking down key threats—if he used it on everyone, he'd run dry long before the mission ended.
But since the opponent was Momochi Zabuza, wielder of the Kubikiribocho and one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, unleashing Raikiri wasn't shameful at all.
Kirigakure was one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, after all. Sure, their overall strength varied, but the gap wasn't so huge that it was laughable. A Jonin from Kirigakure was about on par with a Jonin from Konoha. Unlike the minor villages, whose "Jonin" sometimes couldn't even beat an elite Chunin from a major village.
The Seven Ninja Swordsmen were undeniably top-tier in Kirigakure—basically on the same level as Kakashi, Guy, or Asuma in Konoha. Not high-level leadership, but definitely elite, frontline powerhouses.
No one could blame him for pulling out all the stops against someone like that.
As for the outcome… he must have won. If he'd lost to Zabuza there, he wouldn't be alive for anything that happened later.
Outside of Kitahara's usual sarcastic tone, he often hid important details inside his rants.
And now he was talking about Namikaze Minato—Kakashi's own teacher.
Raikiri was a high-speed assassination technique meant to finish a target in a single strike. It sounded perfect. But if the enemy had speed equal to or beyond yours, their counterattack could be lethal.
Minato was exactly that type of opponent—the fastest reflexes Kakashi had ever witnessed.
Maybe only someone like Uchiha Shisui could compare.
If Kakashi ever fought someone at that level, their counterstrike would kill him before he realized what had happened.
Your speed doesn't matter if theirs is even faster.
From that angle, Kitahara's criticism wasn't wrong. Raikiri might be Kakashi's invention, but the ones truly suited for it were members of the Uchiha Clan.
Of course, the Uchiha Clan was gone now. Only three true clan members still lived.
Apparently the future Kakashi passed Raikiri down to Sasuke, and Sasuke used it to create a whole series of techniques called Chidori Current. Like in the video—when he paralyzed Naruto and the others in an instant—that was one of Chidori's alternate forms.
Chidori had originally been Raikiri's name. The sound it made resembled a thousand birds crying out. Kakashi only renamed it after slicing through lightning with it.
And Sasuke… used Raikiri on a meteor?
The diary offered no explanation. No context. It didn't even make clear whether that line was literal, exaggerated, or metaphorical.
Kakashi didn't think Kitahara would lie in his own diary. Why would he? So if he wrote it, something like that must've actually happened in the future.
Kakashi had already earned fame across the shinobi world for cutting lightning. That alone was legendary.
But hitting a meteor?
That went beyond anything he could imagine.
Raikiri might be an S-rank technique, but even it didn't have that kind of power.
Raikiri against a meteor sounded like a myth.
Not even the Third Hokage or the Fourth Hokage could pull off something like that.
Right now, the shinobi world was still stable—no collapsing power levels, no absurd monsters wandering around. Kakashi couldn't even visualize what "Raikiri vs. meteor" looked like.
Was that still a ninja?
Was that still human?
Or was that already on the level of the gods from ancient legends?
Whatever the truth was, one thing was certain — the future hinted at in Kaede Kitahara's diary no longer resembled the shinobi world Kakashi understood.