"Kakashi — are you certain the person who took down the Nine-Tails was actually Ryū-kun? I an... I know he's strong. Strong enough that neither of us can beat him. But taking down an actual Tailed Beast? That's almost impossible to believe."
Even Might Guy, not typically a person prone to overthinking, had nearly short-circuited when he first heard the news.
It had been several days since the Nine-Tails incident. Konoha had thrown itself fully into reconstruction. But the scale of what had happened that day still hadn't fully settled into anyone's sense of the past — it felt more like yesterday than a week ago.
More than a few people, including trained shinobi, were waking up in the middle of the night. Bad dreams. Almost always about the Nine-Tails.
There had been casualties. Kushina's labor had co with almost no warning, which ant the village had been completely unprepared when the Nine-Tails was released. The final count of civilian and shinobi deaths still hadn't been confird.
Kakashi surfaced from his thoughts when Guy's question landed. He kept pace with him — they were racing, as usual — and answered while running.
"The under-twenty-five restriction kept out of the actual fight. Lord Sarutobi and Lord Hokage both agreed on that. But I was watching from a distance the entire ti. And you know the ANBU has reliable channels." He paused. "From what the senior jōnin in ANBU were saying — the one who put the Nine-Tails down was a man nad Ryū."
Another pause.
"There might be other people nad Ryū in the village. But only one person by that na at that level of ability. The man who stopped the Nine-Tails is your neighbor."
Guy's expression still struggled with what he was hearing. He knew Ryū was strong. Strong enough that neither of them stood a chance. But strong enough to take on the Nine-Tails alone —
It still sounded unreal.
And Ryū had never attended the Academy. Not for a single day.
"Both Hokage-sama working together could only restrain the Nine-Tails," Guy said, the shock finally finding its shape. "And Ryū-kun put it down by himself. Does that an — is Ryū-kun actually stronger than Hokage-sama?"
Behind his mask, Kakashi's expression did sothing complicated.
He didn't know, precisely. But on current evidence, Ryū had co out ahead.
It was hard to sit with, honestly. Minato was his sensei. The Fourth Hokage. And Ryū was only a few years older than Kakashi himself — seventeen — which ant he was well below Minato's age and apparently above him in raw power.
That created a feeling Kakashi wasn't entirely comfortable naming.
Seventeen. How.
He accepted it, because the evidence was what it was. But it didn't go down smoothly.
The two of them were running full-tilt through empty streets — the whole village was at construction sites, leaving the roads quiet — when Kakashi's eye caught sothing ahead. Two familiar buildings at the roadside.
That was Guy's house. And the one next door was —
A thought surfaced. Absurd. He pushed it down before it fully ford.
Ever since Rin died, Kakashi had been going through the motions. That kind of thought had no place in him right now.
And the other person might not even agree.
"Kakashi!" Guy's voice pitched upward suddenly with visible excitent. "That's Ryū-kun's place up there! Let's stop by! I just had a bold idea!"
Kakashi said nothing.
He was barely able to form a sentence thirty seconds ago, and now he's excited about bold ideas?
Generally speaking, when a Konoha shinobi announced a bold idea, the village maintained several bold regulations specifically designed to address the consequences.
He kept the observation to himself and let Guy do as he liked.
They slowed to a stop in front of the house. Kakashi looked it over — almost entirely undamaged, just a couple of hairline cracks on the exterior. He thought about his own house, which had been reduced to a pile of debris. His mouth twitched slightly.
Four hundred ters apart. How is this one basically untouched.
"Alright," he said. "We're here. What was this bold idea?"
Guy opened his mouth to answer — then stopped.
Kakashi stopped too.
Because the front door of Ryū's house swung open from the inside, and a familiar figure appeared in the doorway.
All three of them looked at each other for a mont.
Ryū had known they were coming, of course. He'd known who they were before they reached the door. Observation Haki at his level gave him full spatial awareness — not just sound, but the ability to focus in on specific details at range in any direction. Two hundred ters was nothing. He'd had a clear read on both of them long before they arrived.
He looked at Guy's face — unmistakably excited, unmistakably building up to sothing — and his mouth pulled to one side.
"Guy," he said flatly. "Whatever bold idea you've got — take it to Kakashi. My orientation is completely normal."
Behind his mask, Kakashi's visible eye contracted sharply.
Mind-reading? Or superhuman hearing?
They'd been two hundred ters away when Guy said that. There was no physical way —
What Kakashi didn't know was that two hundred ters was well within casual Observation Haki range. Five or six hundred ters, if Ryū actively listened in. There was almost nothing he couldn't hear if he chose to pay attention.
Guy, characteristically, processed none of this and arrived at his own conclusion. He scratched his bowl cut, looking faintly puzzled.
"How did Ryū-kun know I had a bold idea? Wait — this must be the resonance of youth, right?! Yes! That's definitely what it is!"
Ryū stared at him.
"...Believe whatever you like."
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