Guy's smile did not waver.
"If Kakashi is occupied," he announced, his voice carrying the weight of a declaration, "then I shall challenge you instead!"
He pointed at Renjiro.
Kakashi moved quickly, stepping between them with the fluid urgency of a man trying to prevent a disaster.
"I'm busy. Later." His voice was flat, clipped, carrying an edge that Guy, in his enthusiasm, completely missed.
"Why are you busy?" Guy asked, genuinely curious, his head tilting like a bird spotting something interesting.
Kakashi hesitated. The truth was complicated. The truth involved admitting that he was being taught, that the hierarchy he had assumed between himself and Renjiro was not what he had believed. But Guy's stare was relentless, and Kakashi found himself answering.
"Training. Under Renjiro."
The effect was immediate. Guy's eyes widened. Then they lit up.
"Training?!" His voice rose an octave. "Then I must join!" He struck a pose, fist raised to the sky.
"What could be more youthful than training under a legendary shinobi? What could be more—"
"Why?"Renjiro's voice cut through Guy's monologue like a blade.
Guy's arms dropped. For the first time since his arrival, he seemed to actually look at the young man before him.
"Why do you want to challenge me?"
Guy's expression shifted. The manic enthusiasm did not disappear, but it deepened. Became something more earnest.
"My father spoke of you," he said, and there was a weight in his voice that had been absent before.
"He admired your strength, and now you hold the record for most gates opened in the village"
Renjiro's expression did not change, but something behind his eyes flickered.
Renjiro studied the young man before him. Guy's father. Might Duy. The name surfaced from years of memory.
'Duy helped refine my taijutsu,' he remembered. 'He was the one who showed me what the gates could do. What they could cost.'
The memories were not faded, but they were distant.
"Your father opened the Seventh Gate, so how do I hold the record?" Renjiro asked.
Guy's jaw tightened. "During the war. When Kiri betrayed the alliance."
His voice was steady, but there was something beneath it—pride, grief, the weight of a legacy inherited. "He fought the Seven Swordsmen. Held them long enough for reinforcements to arrive."
The words hung in the air. Seven Swordsmen. And one man, dismissed as a failure, opening the gate that consumed him, buying time with his life.
'I had forgotten,' Renjiro realised. The thought was cold, sharp. 'I had forgotten Duy's death. Forgotten that he died in the war.'
The weight of that realisation pressed against his ribs. Duy had been significant to him—a mentor in taijutsu, a reminder that strength came in forms that the village did not always value.
'Is the timeline correcting itself?' he wondered. 'The war started earlier than it should have, the battles changed, but Duy still opened the Eighth Gate. Still died fighting the Seven Swordsmen.'
He looked at Guy, at the fierce determination in the young chunin's face, and felt something shift in his own chest.
'If the timeline corrects itself… if my interference doesn't matter… then what is the point?'
The thought was dangerous. He had built his second life on the assumption that he could change things, that his knowledge gave him leverage, that the future was not written in stone. But Duy's death—unchanged, inevitable—suggested otherwise.
He rejected it.
He would not accept that the timeline was fixed. He would not accept that his actions were meaningless. He would test it, push against it, and find the edges where change was possible.
He looked at Kakashi, 'If Kakashi changes… if he becomes something more than the Copy Ninja, something beyond the grief that defined him… then Rin's fate might change. Obito's. The massacre. Everything.'
He would use Kakashi as the test. Push him beyond the limits of the original timeline, make him stronger, make him different. And see if the future bends.
Guy was still waiting, so Renjiro made a decision.
"Fine."
Kakashi's head snapped up. "Renjiro—"
"One exchange." Renjiro's voice was calm, "No gates beyond what you can control."
He met Guy's gaze. "Show me what you've learned from your father."
Guy's grin was blinding. He dropped into a stance, his body coiling with barely contained energy.
The fight began without warning.
Guy moved first—a blur of green, his speed startling even without the gates. His fist aimed for Renjiro's centre mass, direct and powerful.
Renjiro was not there. His movement was minimal, a shift of weight that placed him inches from Guy's strike, close enough to feel the wind of its passage but not close enough to be touched. His hand came up, deflecting the follow-up kick with a motion that was almost lazy.
Guy pressed forward. His attacks came in waves—punches, kicks, knees, elbows, each one flowing into the next with the rhythm of someone who had spent years perfecting the art of continuous assault. The air around them thickened with the force of his strikes.
Renjiro moved through it like water. His hands redirected, his feet found angles that should not exist, his body existed in the spaces between Guy's attacks. He was not faster than Guy—not noticeably—but he was smoother. Each motion fed into the next, conserving energy, maximising efficiency.
Guy was force. Renjiro was control.
"First Gate!"
The shout was almost joyful. Guy's speed spiked, his strikes coming faster, harder, the air around his fists beginning to shimmer with the heat of his exertion. Renjiro's movements adjusted, still smooth, still controlled, but now there was a weight behind them that had not been there before.
"Second Gate!"
The ground beneath Guy's feet cracked. His movements became blurred, his strikes creating shockwaves that sent dust spiralling outward. Renjiro's posture shifted, his own speed increasing, his counters becoming sharper, more decisive.
"Third Gate!"
Guy's body was straining now, his skin flushed, veins visible at his temples. The pressure in the clearing was immense, the air itself seeming to recoil from his presence. He launched a combination that would have shattered stone, a sequence of strikes that left no angle uncovered.
Renjiro caught his fist.
The impact sent a shockwave through the clearing, dust exploding outward in a ring. Guy's eyes widened. Renjiro's expression was calm, almost thoughtful. His own chakra was flaring now, the telltale signs of the Third Gate active in his own body.
"Your father," Renjiro said, "taught me that the gates are not a weapon. They are a sacrifice. A cost you pay for a moment of greatness."
He released Guy's fist.
"You fight like you're trying to prove something."
Guy's jaw tightened. His fists came up again, his stance shifting, preparing to push further—
"Fourth Gate!"
The chakra surge was visible, a corona of energy around Guy's body that made the air itself vibrate. His muscles strained, his breathing became ragged, but he was still moving, still attacking, still refusing to accept the gap between them.
Renjiro moved.
The counter was not fast—it was inevitable. A palm strike to Guy's centre mass, timed to the exact moment when his momentum left him exposed. The force of it folded Guy forward, his attack broken, his body suddenly weightless as he was lifted from the ground.
He landed hard, sliding across the packed earth before coming to a stop at the edge of the clearing.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Renjiro straightened, his own gates deactivating, his breathing already steady. He walked to where Guy lay, looking down at the young boy who was already pushing himself up, already trying to rise despite the trembling in his limbs.
"You have your father's will," Renjiro said quietly. "That is more valuable than any gate."
Guy stared at the offered hand for a moment. Then he grinned, blood at the corner of his mouth, and took it.
"Then I will surpass you," he said, his voice rough but unwavering. "I will open the Eighth Gate and live. I will prove that effort can overcome even the limits of the body."
Renjiro pulled him to his feet.
"That is a worthy goal."
Kakashi watched from the edge of the clearing, his expression was unreadable.
'I got Genjutsu. Hours of it. Psychological torture. Fear conditioning. And Guy gets praise?'
He was irritated. More than irritated.
'Why does Guy get the gentle lesson while I get the trauma?'
He did not say it aloud. His pride would not allow it. But the thought sat in his chest, a small, burning coal of resentment.
Renjiro watched both of them. Guy, still vibrating with the energy of his near-victory, was already planning his next challenge. Kakashi, standing apart, his irritation barely hidden behind his mask.
'Kakashi is the genius,' he thought. 'The prodigy. The one who was supposed to save everyone. But Guy… Guy is the one who will become something greater. The one who will push beyond every limit, who will actually save everyone.'
He looked at them—the two young men who would shape the future of Konoha, who would carry the weight of the next generation on their shoulders.
'If I invest in them, the entire future shifts.'
The thought was not new. But standing here, in the ruined clearing, watching the two rivals who would become legends, it felt more real than it ever had before.
'Soft power,' he thought. 'Might actually help in the future.'
He reached down and picked up the board from where it lay on the ground, brushing the dust from its surface.
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