Ryū turned toward the source of the voice. Sure enough, there was the bowl-cut boy—a dozen or so ters away on the opposite side of the street—waving and shouting at him.
Standing next to the bowl-cut boy was another youth. Slender, almost delicate-looking.
His hair was so shade between gray, white, and silver—hard to tell.
A mask covered most of his face.
Only one eye was visible.
Hands in his pockets, striking a pose that was just a tiny bit too cool for its own good.
The mont Ryū laid eyes on this boy—
He froze.
If two consecutive Group Quests hadn't tempered his composure, he might have blurted out "Hatake Fifty-Fifty" right then and there.
Dressed like that? If this wasn't Hatake Kakashi, then who the hell was it?
The outfit was impossibly distinctive.
And equally impossible to misidentify.
Just as eye-catching as Might Guy's bowl cut—and every bit as one-of-a-kind.
Hold on—isn't Kakashi supposed to be in ANBU right now?
Shouldn't he be on jinchūriki guard duty? Kushina's pregnant.
Is he on leave?
Hmm… ANBU gets vacation days? I figured they worked 365 days a year.
Then again, given the Fourth and Third Hokage's dispositions…
They probably did arrange ti off for ANBU operatives.
Guard shifts were likely rotational.
Danzō's Root, on the other hand—now that was probably a 365-days-no-holidays operation.
Worse than any corporate overti you could imagine.
A mont of silence for them.
Mont of silence concluded.
* * *
Shaking off the tangle of thoughts, Ryū looked at Guy—who was still waving and hollering—and resigned himself to walking over, trash bin in hand.
"Ryū-kun! I can't believe your trip took over two weeks! If you hadn't hung that sign on your door, I'd have thought you moved out!"
Might Guy flashed his trademark sunny grin.
Before Ryū could respond, Guy seed to rember sothing and barreled on:
"Oh, almost forgot to introduce you! Ryū-kun, this is my friend—and classmate from the Ninja Academy—Hatake Kakashi!"
"Kakashi, this is the Ryū-kun I'm always telling you about. He looked out for a lot when we were little. Whenever the older kids used to pick on , he'd chase every last one of them off."
Hatake Kakashi's single visible eye—a listless, dead-fish stare devoid of emotional fluctuation—settled on Ryū. A flicker of curiosity passed through it, carefully concealed.
He could tell that this "Ryū-kun" Guy was always going on about wasn't much older than himself.
Three or four years at most.
And there wasn't the faintest ripple of chakra coming from him.
aning… he wasn't a shinobi?
…Not being a shinobi isn't so bad, actually.
No need to worry about so many things.
No need to run the sa tedious missions day after day.
"Hello. I'm Hatake Kakashi. Guy's classmate."
Ryū gave a nod.
"Hello. I'm Yagami Ryū. Guy's neighbor."
Their self-introductions were cut from the sa cloth.
Equally brief.
Kakashi had been sizing up Ryū just now—and Ryū had been doing the exact sa thing. This was a living, breathing Hatake Kakashi, and a teenage one at that. Not exactly sothing you saw every day.
Ryū had never attended the Ninja Academy. He didn't even know what chakra was outside of what he'd seen in the Naruto ani. He certainly couldn't mold it.
And yet, for so reason, he could sense sothing inside Kakashi—
A strange energy circulating slowly through his body.
A faint, elusive impression.
Is that… a shinobi's chakra?
It did have a distinctive quality about it.
At this point in the tiline, Kakashi's mask covered both eyes—which ant the Sharingan was already there. He'd already received Obito's eye.
Dōjutsu really were the most broken thing in the Naruto universe. A total bug in the system.
Regular Sharingan, multi-tomoe Sharingan, Rinnegan, Byakugan, Tenseigan… and by the ti you got to that trainwreck sequel, there was even sothing called the "Jōgan."
At that point, why not just rena Naruto to Eyeball Ninja and call it a day.
* * *
Just as the silence threatened to turn a shade awkward—
Guy, ever the last to read the room, suddenly piped up:
"Oh! Ryū-kun, Kakashi and I were about to grab ran at Ichiraku. Want to co along? My treat today! Heh heh~"
Looking at Guy's boundless enthusiasm, Ryū felt a twitch in his cheek.
Then he nodded with a resigned smile.
"Sure. Let put this trash bin back first."
Guy shot him a thumbs-up.
"OK! I'll wait right here for you, Ryū-kun!"
"…Give two or three minutes."
Kakashi silently watched Ryū's retreating figure. Once Ryū was several dozen ters away—
The normally taciturn Hatake Kakashi spoke up, directing a question at Guy.
"Guy. This neighbor of yours… he's really not a shinobi?"
Guy blinked, scratching his head.
"Why do you ask? Ryū-kun genuinely isn't a shinobi. There's no chakra signature on him at all. He didn't even attend the Ninja Academy."
Kakashi listened, then gave a pensive nod.
"A civilian, huh… But sothing about him gives a strange feeling."
Kakashi murmured, almost to himself:
"It's as if… if we actually fought, he could subdue in an instant."
His voice was low, but Guy heard him.
Guy laughed it off.
"Kakashi, aren't you overthinking this? Your combat ability is top-tier even among jōnin. Short of soone with the Fourth Hokage's speed, the number of people in all of Konoha who could take you down in an instant is… you could count them on one hand, right?"
Kakashi muttered:
"A false impression, maybe… I hope it's just a false impression."
Truthfully, even he couldn't tell whether the feeling was real or imagined.
Because he couldn't detect a single trace of chakra from Ryū.
Yet the overwhelming sense that this person was extraordinarily powerful persisted—a stubborn, inexplicable déjà vu.
He couldn't even pinpoint what was giving him that impression.
The contradiction between what his senses told him and what his instincts scread—
Left him tangled in quiet unease.
☆☆☆
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