A pause hung in the air, heavy and oppressive.
The remaining twin, still connected by the chain to his fallen brother, froze midway through his attack. His brain hadn't yet processed what had just happened. Gozu—his other half, just as strong and fast—had been neutralized. Not killed, not torn apart. Just... shut down. With one simple strike. From a twelve-year-old boy who hadn't even broken a sweat.
That moment of hesitation was fatal.
Whoosh.
Without a sound, like a ghost emerging from the shadows of the trees, Kakashi landed between Meizu and Naruto. His lazy aura vanished, replaced by cold, deadly efficiency.
Meizu instinctively tried to jerk back to free his weapon, but Kakashi was far faster.
The jonin simply ended the fight.
A flick of the wrist. Crack. Kakashi dislocated the chunin's wrist, forcing him to drop the clawed gauntlet.
A second strike, a chop to the neck, landed precisely.
Meizu went limp, collapsing unconscious beside his brother.
Fight over. All of this—from the puddle explosion to the fall of the second chunin—took no more than a few seconds.
Kakashi slowly walked over to Gozu's body, the one Naruto had knocked out. He turned him over, checked for a pulse.
Pulse present. He's unconscious. Incredible...
He pulled a coil of wire from his pouch and quickly, with professional movements, began tying both shinobi back-to-back around a thick tree.
"Sakura," his voice was level, sharply contrasting with the terror she had just experienced.
Sakura flinched, snapping out of her stupor.
"S-sensei! You... you're alive!"
"Substitution Technique," Kakashi threw out briefly. He picked up the poisoned clawed gauntlet Meizu had dropped. Dark purple liquid dripped slowly from one of the blades.
He walked over to Tazuna, who was leaning against a tree, white as a sheet.
"Tazuna-san," Kakashi brought the claw close to the bridge builder's face. "We need to have a serious talk."
Tazuna swallowed hard.
"These two are chunin from the Hidden Mist. They are called the Demon Brothers. They are known for their ruthlessness. But they are hunter-nin; they don't attack ordinary people. And they don't use poison on standard missions."
He turned to his team.
"This is a neurotoxin. One cut—and you would have been paralyzed in a minute. In an hour—dead."
Sakura paled and pressed a hand to her mouth.
"A C-Rank mission," Kakashi looked at Tazuna again, his voice serious, "does not involve clashes with shinobi. Especially assassin chunin. You lied to us. This is, at a minimum, a B-Rank mission. And judging by who they sent first... I'd say it's A-Rank."
Silence.
Tazuna remained silent, unable to meet the commander's gaze.
"We are a team of genin," Kakashi continued. "We are not trained for this. I suggest you choose your words carefully about the reason for hiding the mission rank, after which we will decide what to do next."
Sakura watched all this, her brain still feverishly trying to catch up with events.
Kakashi-sensei is alive. It was a Substitution Technique. It was a test.
But... it wasn't a test. The enemies were real! The poison was real.
She was still trembling, but now not from fear, but from shame. She had done nothing. She just screamed and froze. She was useless.
She looked at Sasuke. He stood nearby, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles turned white. He too... had done nothing.
Then she looked at Naruto.
He wasn't trembling. Didn't look scared. Just stood calmly to the side, brushing dust off his clothes, as if he had just finished a D-Rank weeding mission.
She hadn't expected Naruto to perform like this. While she and the genius Sasuke-kun... did nothing.
Sasuke, meanwhile, looked at his hands.
They were trembling slightly.
Not from fear, but from the surge of adrenaline. And from all-consuming humiliation.
Everything happened too fast, he thought, teeth gritted.
He analyzed every split second. Kakashi "died." He, an Uchiha, hesitated, trying to comprehend it. While he thought and assessed... Naruto acted.
And how he acted!
Sasuke saw it. He saw Naruto disappear. He saw that impossible speed. It wasn't the clumsy lunge of a genin. It was pure, controlled movement that he couldn't even track.
He... he reacted, the thought pounded in his head like a hammer.
His shame instantly turned into rage. Into rivalry. Into the same obsession he felt during the bell test. This guy... he surpassed him.
I must become stronger! I won't let him... I won't let anyone be stronger than me again!
"Naruto."
Naruto raised his head. Kakashi turned to him. His tone was serious.
"Come here."
Naruto walked over to him, stepping away from the rest of the group.
"Yes, sensei?"
"Your speed," Kakashi said, looking him straight in the eyes. "And your final strike. That is not something taught in the Academy."
Naruto met his gaze calmly. He had expected this question. He wasn't going to lie, but he wasn't going to reveal his main secret either.
"I don't know, sensei," he replied. "I just... trained a lot. Every day. I saw him attacking, and my body reacted on its own."
Kakashi looked at him for a few more seconds. He saw that the boy wasn't lying. But he also saw that he wasn't telling the whole truth.
The jonin sighed internally.
Well, he doesn't have to.
Kakashi recalled everything: the calmness on the roof and D-rank missions. The quiet vigilance in the forest. The instant detection of the puddle. And now... this speed.
This progress... it's incredible. It doesn't look like the Nine-Tails' influence. That Power is chaotic, furious, crude. But this... he remembered how Naruto vanished and delivered one precise, surgical strike. This was... controlled. Extremely precise. I'll have to observe his training.
He nodded, accepting the student's answer.
"Alright. Stay sharp. As I said, I don't think they were alone."