After Kakashi finished running a fresh round of wild theories about Uchiha Feiyu in his head, he finally put down his "genius pride" and started asking Feiyu for guidance instead.
Feiyu had already learned the White Fang Blade Style, but in truth he was a pure "experience-type" learner—he'd relied on Hatake Sakumo possessing his body and personally performing the techniques through him. Feiyu remembered how it felt to move, and copied that. He knew what to do, but not why it worked. When it came to the sword style's theory, Kakashi actually understood more.
Luckily, Sakumo's soul was literally floating at his side.
Whatever Kakashi didn't understand, Feiyu simply threw to Sakumo. Sakumo would explain, and Feiyu would repeat the explanation back word for word.
With the founder of the White Fang style sitting in "ghost office hours," Kakashi's questions were easily answered—some of them even went beyond what the legacy scroll covered, and Sakumo could still respond without difficulty.
Because of this, Kakashi became even more certain:
Feiyu must be his father's secret disciple.
If Sakumo hadn't said anything while he was alive, and Feiyu wasn't saying anything now, Kakashi would just pretend he knew nothing.
When the training and instruction session ended, Kakashi took the initiative to keep Feiyu for lunch, planning to cook for him himself. He didn't say it, but clearly he'd come a long way out of the darkness.
Just as Kakashi was about to head to the kitchen, knocking sounded again from the front door.
"Huh? Someone else?" Feiyu was a little surprised. "Kakashi, you know who that is?"
Ever since Sakumo's death, most ninja—whether out of shame or regret—had stayed away. Aside from the first few days when people came to offer condolences, almost nobody visited anymore.
So who was coming now?
"Probably that idiot Guy… He's been knocking a lot lately."
Kakashi replied in a flat tone, but Feiyu, watching closely, caught the faint upward tug at the corner of his mouth. Without Sharingan-level perception, and with that mask in the way, you'd never notice it.
He called Guy an idiot, but after Sakumo died, only Might Guy—the resident hot-blooded fool—ignored the so-called "awkward atmosphere" and kept coming to the Hatake house every day.
As for Uchiha Obito, the future "best friend," well… the fact that he hadn't even heard about Sakumo's death until Minato told him made it pretty obvious his relationship with Kakashi wasn't that deep yet.
"Oh, Guy, huh… here to challenge you again?" Feiyu blinked.
He actually got along pretty well with Guy.
One was a devoted slacker.
The other was the incarnation of Youth™.
They looked like polar opposites, but both were weirdos among ninja, which made it easier to talk to each other than to "normal" people.
Kakashi didn't answer Feiyu. He just went to open the door.
Even from inside the house, Feiyu could hear Guy's booming voice clearly:
"Kakashi! Train with me in the fires of Youth!"
"Busy."
"Then let's have a passionate duel! I just mastered an incredible new—"
"I'm about to eat lunch."
"Oh! Then I'll come back this afternoon! Youth must never stagnate!"
Guy was about to leave, neatly deflected in just a few lines, when a voice called out from behind Kakashi.
"Not staying for lunch, Guy?"
Guy froze mid-step and turned back to see Feiyu walking out from behind Kakashi.
"Feiyu?! What are you doing at Kakashi's place?"
Normally, Guy wouldn't be that surprised. Kakashi was just a bit cold and aloof, not socially crippled. Having a few friends over was nothing strange.
But given Kakashi's current state, him inviting anyone home was basically unthinkable. Even if someone wanted to visit, they'd probably get thrown out.
As he was thinking, Guy glanced at Kakashi again—and immediately noticed the difference.
Kakashi still looked subdued, but he wasn't dead-eyed and hollow anymore. The suffocating aura from before was mostly gone.
Guy might act like a brainless hot-blooded maniac, but being weird doesn't mean being stupid. In reality, he was "rough on the outside, careful on the inside." He'd been worried about Kakashi this whole time, so the improvement was obvious to him.
"I'm here to do some special training with Kakashi," Feiyu said. "We're just about to eat. Want to stay too, Guy?"
"After lunch, we can all train together. Saves you the trouble of running back and forth."
"Really?! That's amazing! I'm in your debt! This is Youth! After training, I'll celebrate by running thirty laps around Konoha!"
Guy's eyes instantly filled with comically wide tear-streams.
He completely ignored Kakashi muttering "I don't want to train with that idiot," and barged past him enthusiastically into the house.
Kakashi grumbled a bit, but his feet still obediently carried him to the kitchen to finish cooking.
Honestly, even before Sakumo's death, Kakashi had always had a bit of tsundere in him—getting moved inside, complaining out loud.
Once Kakashi brought out several dishes and laid them on the table, Feiyu became certain the kid was in a pretty good mood.
Meat, vegetables, variety, and a generous amount—even with ninja appetites being larger than normal, it was clearly more than the bare minimum.
"…He's eight and he can already cook like this? Ninja in this world really do grow up too fast," Feiyu thought.
After the meal, Guy bounced to his feet first.
"Kakashi! Feiyu! Let's begin training! We'll start with handstand laps around the entire village—"
"We never agreed to that."
"Yeah, no. I absolutely refuse that kind of training."
The two rejected Guy's regimen in unison, without hesitation.
In fact, that kind of extreme physical training wasn't common at all among ninja.
Their strength came from chakra. Even taijutsu relied on it. Without chakra, no amount of flesh and bone could split boulders.
So while most ninja did physical conditioning, it was mostly to maintain basic fitness. Pure muscle training just didn't boost taijutsu that much on its own.
Honestly, if it weren't for the Eight Gates, even if Might Guy trained like that his whole life, the best he could reach would probably be a taijutsu-focused tokubetsu jōnin—and that'd still require pretty exceptional natural talent.
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