That figure of Kaede, walking across the rooftop through the falling rain, carried an aura of aloofness and solitude, as if he gazed indifferently down upon the world. But the moment he stepped inside the Hokage Building, that atmosphere was shattered completely.
Anko Mitarashi suddenly leapt out from who-knows-where and clung to Kaede's arm, gazing up at him with wide, pleading eyes.
"Mas, I mean, Hokage-sama, I want to become stronger too..."
Rin had become the Three-Tails' Jinchuriki.
Kakashi had awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan.
Even her friend Yuhi Kurenai had become the Seven-Tails' Jinchuriki.
Everyone around her had reached heights she could only look up to. And yet she was still only a Chunin.
"You're already quite strong," Kaede replied with a faint smile. "Didn't you already become Kurenai's instructor?"
Anko froze for a second, ready to deny it, but then something clicked in her mind, and her face flushed red. Guiltily avoiding Kaede's gaze, she stammered, "I… I didn't…"
"Is that so?"
Kaede's soft smile made her even more flustered. She awkwardly let go of his arm.
Bonk!
Kaede's smile vanished as he flicked her forehead with a finger. Anko yelped, clutching her head and stumbling back two steps.
"If you'd trained seriously using the techniques I taught you, you'd be a Jonin by now. You've spent too much time messing around, don't you think you should reflect on that?"
"I have been training!" Anko puffed out her cheeks in protest.
Kaede gave her a glance and said flatly, "You call that training? Barely three hours a day. Even if I don't expect you to reach Kakashi's level, you should at least be training thirty hours a day."
"There are only twenty-four hours in a day..." Anko muttered under her breath.
Kaede shot her a look and continued walking down the corridor. "Inside my Time Barrier, you can get more training time. But if I recall, you've only used it twice."
Kakashi's current strength may be partially thanks to Obito's Mangekyo, but it was also inseparable from his tireless dedication to training.
Kaede's Time Domain was activated daily in a training chamber on the second basement floor of the Hokage Building, providing fivefold time acceleration.
With enough food for two days, spending just one full day inside was equivalent to nearly two days of real-time training.
Kakashi might be seventeen now, but his physical body had already aged past twenty. That extra three years of accelerated training was the real reason behind his power.
"But if I train there, I'll be stuck for a whole two days at a time..." Anko said with a pout. "If I keep doing that, I'll end up older than Kurenai. My youth and energy will disappear with age!"
Kaede couldn't help but laugh a little at her words. His sapphire-blue eyes flickered briefly as he scanned her with a glance, then placed a hand on her shoulder.
A thread of chakra flowed into her body.
After a quick check, he withdrew it.
"With your current physical condition, even if you became a Jinchuriki, you couldn't fully host or control a Tailed Beast's chakra. You'd have to seal it away, unlike Rin or Kurenai, who can use it freely without a seal."
"If you want to grow stronger, you either train diligently, or you bear burdens that most people can't. There are no easy fruits to pluck."
After his inspection, Kaede spoke to her calmly.
Anko hesitated. "Burdens most people can't bear… Is there a way like that? Something that can make me stronger?"
"There is," Kaede replied, looking her in the eye. "For example, possessing extraordinary mental resilience, enduring darkness that most can't, and channeling the power of the 'Zero-Tails'… Want to give it a try?"
The Zero-Tails was not one of the Nine Tailed Beasts, nor part of the Ten-Tails. But once fully controlled, its power surpassed most ordinary Tailed Beasts. Its core was dark chakra born of spiritual darkness, the essence of worldly negativity.
It was a forbidden technique created by the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, after years of researching the Uchiha clan's Sharingan and Mangekyo Sharingan.
The Uchiha's Sharingan, especially the Mangekyo, was awakened through intense emotional trauma, typically when their psyche tipped into darkness. In extreme cases, the eye could skip straight from two tomoe to Mangekyo.
Tobirama studied this phenomenon and eventually developed a forbidden jutsu: one that guided the spirit into darkness and summoned the Zero-Tails to possess the user, granting its power.
However, the technique was incredibly dangerous. Once possessed, the user was far more likely to fall into darkness than even those awakening the Mangekyo, making the risk of mental collapse extremely high. For this reason, Tobirama sealed the jutsu away after its creation.
"Zero-Tails...?" Anko blinked in surprise. "Aren't the Tailed Beasts only One through Nine?"
Kaede shook his head. "The Zero-Tails isn't one of them. It's another kind of power altogether. The technique to control it was created by the Second Hokage."
Anko fell silent, then gradually steeled her expression. "...I want to try it."
Kaede tilted his head slightly, studying her for a moment before nodding.
"Alright. I'll let you try."
Though the technique was forbidden and the Zero-Tails hard to control, to someone like Kaede, who was already at the Six Paths level, it was merely another form of Yin Release mental chakra manipulation.
He could refine the technique somewhat.
Of course,
Even with improvements, the user would still have to bear the mental pressure from the darkness. But Kaede thought Anko might be just the right person. After all, in the original timeline, she had endured the darkness of Orochimaru's defection and his cursed seal.
Kaede brought Anko to a secluded room at the far end of the third-floor corridor. The room was sparse, with only a few scrolls neatly arranged on the shelves.
He picked up one scroll, pondered for a moment, then modified the original Zero-Tails technique created by Tobirama Senju and began writing the revised version onto the scroll.
When he finished,
He tossed the scroll to Anko. "Read through it. If you still decide to train in this technique after understanding it, come with me to the back mountain. I'll oversee your training."
Anko caught the scroll, her usual playful demeanor gone. She read its contents with a serious expression, her eyes growing more solemn by the second.
After a while,
She took a deep breath, looked at Kaede, and said, "I still want to try."
"Good."
Kaede nodded slightly and led her out of the Hokage Office. Soon, they arrived at the mountains behind the village.
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Completed version available on Patreon.com/Veltoria